If you’re a senior citizen over 70 and your driver’s license is expiring on your birthday this year, please listen up: You don’t have to go to a DMV office and take a “knowledge” test to renew your license, even though it clearly states that you do on your renewal notice.
You can stay home, renew online and not face the embarrassing possibility of flunking your written test if you miss more than six of 30 questions. Unfortunately, there is no senior discount for wrong answers.
In September 2021, because of COVID-19, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation giving Baby Boomers a reprieve until the end of 2022 from having to go to the DMV to renew their license for another five years. It got a little press, but not much.
On Aug 1 of this year, DMV Director Steve Gordon issued the last of four press releases reminding seniors of Newsom’s one-time offer, and hoping they would “take advantage of the opportunity to skip a trip to the DMV.”
I figure a whole lot of eligible seniors would have taken the opportunity to skip a trip if we had known about it. Newsom’s reprieve was never mentioned on the renewal forms — even though it’s been in effect for more than a year.
Why?
“The temporary rule was not mentioned on renewal notices because it would have required costly and time-consuming programming changes to the department’s computer system that would come at taxpayers’ expense,” the DMV office of public affairs replied in an email to my question.
If you didn’t call the DMV and ask, visit its website, or attended general outreach meetings, you were in the dark.
I paid my $39 and filled out the paperwork online for a temporary license, and stood in line at the DMV for the knowledge test that I had wasted a good part of last weekend studying to pass.
When my number was called, they sent me home saying I was good to go for another five years. No knowledge test required. Have a nice day.
After 2022, though, it’s back to normal. We all have to show up again to renew our license.
I think the DMV wants to eyeball us in person, and make sure most of our marbles are still rolling around up there. But, really, do seniors need to take a written test, like we’re 16-year-old kids with a learner’s permit?
I can understand a driving test on the road to make sure our motor skills are still working, but a knowledge test? C’mon, give us some credit for the last 60-plus years of driving. It’s not like a lot has changed.
The white zone is still for loading and unloading passengers and freight only. We still stop for pedestrians, in or out of the crosswalk, and school buses with red lights flashing is still a must stop.
We already know that tailgating is bad because it can “frustrate the other driver and make him mad.” We were there when road rage was born. We don’t need a test to remind us.
As far as the tricky questions, no harm, no foul. “How much time do you need looking down the road to avoid last minute moves — 5 to 10 seconds; 10 to 15 seconds; or 15 to 20 seconds?”
When’s the last time your wife leaned over in the front seat and said, “watch out, honey, you’re only 8 seconds behind that car.”
Really? People count the seconds? Or do they just develop a feel for distance and safety when they’ve been fighting LA traffic for 60 years? The correct answer is 10 to 15 seconds, by the way.
Are there bad drivers? Sure, in every age group. The statistics don’t lie. The age group with the highest risk for fatal crashes is under 25. The safest is from the mid-50s to the mid-70s, and it starts getting riskier after 80.
No knowledge test is going to change that.
See the Aug. 1 DMV press release on the special rule here: bit.ly/3VJcfSB
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.
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