Department of Transport
July 8th, 2009 by RadarIf you don’t like reading rants, but like knowing the point of things: read the last paragraph. If you don’t like reading rants full-stop: continue no further.
Today I went to renew my license and registration at the Queensland Department of Transportation. The license expires on the 3rd April 2010 and the rego expires tomorrow, so I thought it kind-of-important that I should go register it today, lest I get pulled over. I left work after lunch, at about 1:40pm. What happened there after was… special.
Proof of Identity
I arrived there, waited 10 minutes to get served and when I got served the lady told me that the bank notice that I had wasn’t valid since it wasn’t a bank statement, it was just a letter (from my old bank, sent to my current address) about my insurance. I had already provided my Driver’s License and Medicare card as points of identity. So I had to take a trip down to the Commonwealth bank, print out a real statement from my current bank and bring it back them. I was angry that there was no other way that I could prove I’m me, but there’s other people out there who, despite all known forms of logic, would wish to impersonate me. As far as I know, there (currently) is not a Ryan Bigg fanclub.
Let the fun begin!
Then I arrive back at the DoT and have to wait again, and I get served by the same lady. Then their internal system goes down. The tickets are broken. She enters my details and “ums” and “ares” for what seems like an hour. Oh wait, it was an hour. During this time I think was when I got my license. Without issue. So she calls over a co-worker and they chat about it… eventually the system (did I mention they’re running what appears to be DOS on top of Windows XP? pause for giggles) came back online and she was able to continue the registration process. At one stage she even gave me registration plates and I thought that we were on the absolute final step of the process thank you $WORDREPRESENTINGSAINTLINESS $DEITY!. Then she says more “ums” and “ares”, asks me for the registration plates back and says that the car has been reported as a “repairable write-off”.
“What?”, I uttered. This was a car that I drove from Adelaide, to Brisbane. It’s still in one piece! It was serviced LAST WEEK and wouldn’t have they notified me if the car was a writeoff or had dodgy repairs done to it? They didn’t.
She again explains that the car has been reported, once in its 11 year lifetime as a “repairable write-off” and her colleague does a marvelous impression of a parrot. I think at one stage she was even fed a cracker for doing such a great job! So I ask them if they could look it up. Apparently not. She tells me to contact the Queensland Inspection Services and writes down a number for me.
So I leave, angry, sad, confused, at about 4:30pm. Three hours, gone. Time I could’ve been working.
Mother Darling and Connecting the DoTs
I call mum who’s fiance’s friend sold me the car and ask her if I could have the contact details for the guy. He rings me later on and claims that the car had 3 previous owners before me, and that it was imported from New South Wales. He says to confirm the VIN on the registration slips (and it matches), and then to call the South Aus. Department of Transport and ask them to do a VIN check on the vehicle, and that’s precisely what happens. The kind lady on the other end informs me that once a long time ago in a state far, far away the car was, indeed, reported as a “repairable writeoff”, she informs me that if I contact the NSW DoT they can clear it and I can register the car in the Best State (Queensland, duh). She’s even kind enough to give me the number for the NSW DoT! Service++!
During this call I do a quick Google for Queensland Inspection Services and find out they charge a flat rate of $450 for a car. Didn’t I just get this safety checked last week? Yeah. That’s what I thought too!
I call the NSW DoT and Kind Lady #2 informs me that she cannot clear it, nor can anyone. Uh oh. I was misled.
In further fury and anger, I vent in the office and Dr Nic suggests registering it once again in SA. This I can do over the internet. This doesn’t mean that I go to a smelly building with smellier people and wait for a number to be called, I log in, enter my registration number and credit card details (no, I’m not going to give them to you), and select “6 months” and the entire process is done in less than 5 minutes.
Registering my car over the Internet. That’s how it should be. Quick. Simple. Easy. I beg the other government organisations, please come join the rest of us in the twenty-first century.
Tags: rants
July 8th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
If your car was a repairable write-off, it might have structural damage that a standard safety check does not check, that’s why there is the additional $450 fee. The only way to get the car off this list is to get the car certified as structurally safe.
Queensland Transport does not use DOS. It does, however, use a text-based UI to it’s back-end systems. This makes data-entry faster for trained users because they never have to take their hands off the keyboard.
I thought the requirement for ID at Queensland Transport was the standard 100 point check which a photo ID, Medicare card and any bank keycard would establish. Could be wrong about that though.
Re-registering a car in Queensland is quick and easy too. You just have to pay the fee that is due, and they send you a new registration sticker. If you need plates or a license, you need to go into a branch so they can verify who you are and give them to you.
July 9th, 2009 at 8:37 am
1) I’m not going to pay another $450 to get another safety check when I can simply pay $306 to continue to register in another state. The car is structurally safe, that I’m sure of. I drove it from Adelaide to Brisbane without incident and, with the way I drive it, if it wasn’t structurally sound it would not be drivable.
2) Yes, trained users who are computer ninjas. The lady who was serving me (and other people I’ve been served by at other DoTs) use chicken-pecking as their primary form of typing. When she was typing in the VIN number she was using a combination of primary keyboard + numpad.
3) I had a photo ID, Medicare Card and a bank keycard, but she ALSO wanted a letter from the bank with my name and current address on it. I provided her one from my old bank informing me about my insurance (I have it through the bank) and she consulted with a co-worker who said that wasn’t good enough.
4) It took them an hour and a half to tell me that I couldn’t register my car. This is not quick and easy. I would gladly pay the fee, but… At one stage in the process she did give me my new plates (but then took them back).
So frustrated with the whole bullshit archaic system. I can continue registering it in SA until I run out of family and friends. If it’s an issue with whoever pulls me over, I’ll explain this whole saga to them.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Queensland car registration is the most expensive in the country anyway.
As long as you can officially receive mail at your SA address, you should be fine. I would keep registering it there to save money.