Every end of March, beginning of April, we have to take our registration slip out of the cars, pickup truck and schlep them down along with a pocket full of pesos to the local DMV.
You then wait in line pay your license fees, if you happen to have a new vehicle, you also get the honor of paying a super tax which amounts to a tidy sum, because you have enough money to have purchase a "new" car.
In the states we can renew our licenses via the Internet, never ever having to be morally abused by the government worker who feels like they are doing you a honor of talking to you.
In Patzcuaro, the interchange is always fairly prompt, unless someone in front of you in line has to ask a question of a supervisor.
Then all hell breaks loose.
The supervisor has to show all involved that they are the Supervisor
It's a class thing,
Working class vs the supervisory class. All is usually well until the Supervisor is called to task from the Manager. That is often fun to hear and see.
We have not been hassled in a few years, but the person in line in front of us, simply lost a paper of some sort. In years before they simply looked at the previous year paperwork but not today.
Today it was a big deal. I kind of felt sorry for this person, he looked about 75 or so, a working farmer, who had a pickup truck he was trying to have the name changed to add his son. He expalined that in years past this was sufficent paperwork......
Not this time.
Some things are myriad in bureaucratic paperwork designed to facilitate the inefficiency to provide as many meaningless jobs as possible.
A typical govment job.
After sitting waiting while this transaction was taking place, 5, minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, we were fortunate to have another clerk return from a break.
We paid our pesos, got our vision impairing stickers which must be affixed to the rear windshield, obscuring visibility over the years which would garner a ticket NOB.
There are some of these stickers that obviously hold the window together, I have seen as many as 15 or 20 of these postcard sized decals......
On our Tracker, we have to paste these on the front glass, since the rest of the windows are plastic and would not adhere, at least I haven't tried. So on the right side the window is starting to show the sticker history.....one of the marks of the beast of local taxation.
We left with our stickers and the old farmer was still at the counter trying to have his case understood. I could just imagine what a difficult time I would have had.
I don't do well with bureaucratic BS.
5 comments:
I've never had a lick of problem doing this thing. The only fly in the ointment has been really long lines and waits, but once I get to the desk it goes smoothly. Last year I paid online, but it turns out you still have to go to the same office to get the sticker, so why bother paying online?
This year my wife and I went to the office, and there was virtually no line. Don't know why. We were in and out quickly and happily.
-- Felipe
I also hate red tape - we have a 2008 car and the Mexican government gets a tidy sum for licensing it - more than in the U.S. (New Mexico) by a long shot - oh well - there are other compensations for being here like $140 pesos property taxes ;-)
You just reminded me that I paid my Oregon registration on 31 December and have not yet received my stickers. Of course, it doesn't really matter. But I like to have the truck up to date just in case I want to take it for a visit to The States.
Felipe, we always drive by first and see how many cars there are there, if not to many then we do it....
Calypso, yep it is brutal for a new vehicle, but not for a brand new pickup! That's why you see so many of the 4 door pickups now...the tax on those is negligible.
Steve, so how are you going to get the tags so you are legal the second you cross the border? How is the transmission on the truck, will it make the trip back?
We can now do renewals and vehicle registration on line, but for some reason the DMV budget keeps going up, despite more online functionality.
Why?
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