We Took the Plunge

Last year we finally got our permanante residence cards after going back and forth the various locations of the Immigration office for the last 10+ years.
Today we got our 9 year drivers licenses, or let me be more correct, our Licencia De Conducir.

I missed it last year, the opportunity to go to the fair grounds in Morelia and get a drivers licenses without then normal bureaucracy.

The licenses is good until 2023, which scares me, but knowing how fast the last 10 years have whizzed by, it will not be a surprise.

We arrived at the fairgrounds which are easy to get to, all nice road all the way there. The fair opens up at 1:00 and the ticket booths start selling the entry tickets which are 10 pesos at 12;30 or so.


We arrived at the building and area where the licenses are issued and got in line. We were about 5th an 6th in line. at 1:00pm the office had yet to open, even though there were people milling about BS'ing in side their office.

They finally decided to start talking to people at about 1:45. By 1:45 the line had about 75 people standing in a hot humid non moving air building.

It seems the reason the Mexicans like to come here is because they can get their licenses in one fell swoop, as apposed to going to their other locations 3 or 4 times taking up multiple times each occurrence.

The whole tie up with the line is that they have a Transito Policeman do the initial form printing it out by hand. That took him about 5 minutes each page whereas if they had a preprinted filled out form , it could have saved that encounter.

We then moved to the station that fills out the paperwork and answered a few questions. That took bout 15 minutes each, then you get into the cashiers station, which moved sloooow. That took another 15 minutes as we waited behind 3 people. Once paid we then moved to the photo stations, getting our fingerprint again, and photo.

Once the photo was shot we were asked to move over to an outside area in order not to impede the multiple lines hovering around the desks.
After about 5 minutes we were handed our sealed License with a computer chip inside it.

I could have told the clerk that I wanted the Licencia for large trucks which was about 500 pesos more, but I doubt I will be driving any semi tractor trailers down here.

The cost for a 9 year license is $1602 pesos. That works out to about $122.00 dollars  or 13 dollars a year.

We came prepared with copies of all kinds of stuff. The only thing we really needed was a copy of our CFE bill, a current drivers license from the states and the residency card.
They clerk told us that the lines sometimes are so long that  they have to tell the people to come back the next day. He said that they have been there as late as 2 am still processing people.