The Department of Motor Vehicles registers cars in California and licenses its drivers; more than 23.8 million drivers as of January 1, 2011, and almost 32 million registered vehicles. Its bureaucracy is famously maddening and its long lines are legendary. Sometimes a visit to a DMV office can seem like all 23.8 million drivers are showing up at the same time. And it seems as if each of them has taken their tale of woe to the internet. With a budget approaching $1 billion and more than 8,000 employees, the DMV is one of the state’s largest bureaucracies and, indeed, one of the largest in the nation. The department exists within the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency and has four core functions. It issues driver’s licenses and ID cards; it provides vehicle registrations and titles; it promotes driver safety; and it regulates businesses and occupations related to the manufacture, transport, sale and disposal of vehicles. In addition to its considerable clerical duties, the department also operates 168 field offices, 15 driver safety offices, 14 investigative offices and four telephone service centers. The DMV is also a state moneymaker. It generates $6.5 billion in revenue, most of which is shared with other state departments. California Highway Patrol is expected to get most of its funding, around $1.7 billion, this way in 2011-12.

2010 Statistics for Publication (DMV website) (pdf)

In 1896, a San Francisco newspaper reported one horseless carriage – or automobile, in today’s parlance – in operation in that city. Less than a decade later, there were 17,015 registered motor vehicles throughout the state. Still a newfangled contraption that fought for road space with more numerous horse-drawn vehicles, automobiles were required – just like carriages, carts, bicycles and other modes of personal transport – to be registered with county offices from 1901 to 1905. Then state law passed that responsibility along to the Secretary of State.

It was not until 1913, however, when the state legislature passed the Motor Vehicle Act, that all motor vehicle operators were required to acquire either an “operator’s license” or a “chauffeur’s license” for the privilege. Two years later, with the passage of the Vehicle Act of 1915, the legislature created the Department of Motor Vehicles to both register vehicles and license operators. The duties and powers of the department were transferred to the newly-created Department of Finance in 1921 and along with the move came a new name,   the Division of Motor Vehicles. Two years later, the division began appointing the state’s first traffic law-specific peace officers, forerunners of the California Highway Patrol. In 1929, the division was moved to the Department of Public Works and, finally, in 1931 it became the independent Department of Motor Vehicles.

The DMV began collecting vehicle license fees in 1936 and in 1941 its investigators were made members of the DMV’s Highway Patrol Division. The Motor Vehicle Fund was established in 1945 as the principal repository of the department’s revenues. The California Highway Patrol was spun off into a separate department in 1947, while the DMV established its own investigation unit to enforce laws within its own jurisdiction. 

After World War II, the DMV’s role in state affairs expanded dramatically. Fees paid to the DMV were increased by the legislature to help fund a new network of state highways to complement the federally-funded interstates. The registration fee doubled and weight fees for commercial trucks, as well as the gasoline tax, were both raised. And the state got tough on traffic violators, establishing a point system for a range of bad behavior, including drunk driving and hit-and-run. The first photographs appeared on driver’s licenses in 1958. Smog controls were instituted in 1965 for new vehicle purchases, although smog tests were not required for re-registration until 1984. Handicapped-person placards were first issued in 1977.

Efforts to reduce the long lines at DMV field offices began in 1976, when the DMV allowed vehicle owners to re-register their vehicles year-round, not just in January. In 1979, a select group of drivers with clean records could re-register by mail. The now-familiar restrictions on young drivers and tough drunk driving laws were passed in the 1980s, with mandated jail terms for repeat DUI offenders in 1982 and “provisional” driver status for drivers 16 to 18 years old in 1984.

The last 20 years have seen a steady increase in fees and regulations for California drivers. For one year, vehicle license fees were made a percentage of the vehicle’s resale value, from 1991 until 1992. Re-registration fees increased from $22 to $27 in 1992, to $28 in 1997, to $31 in 2004. A host of other fees were introduced in the 1990s and 2000s, including a $5 fee to take the drivers test and a $21 “California Highway Patrol Fee” for registrants of commercial vehicles (on top of other applicable fees). In 2011, the DMV, like other state departments, struggled to provide consistent service in the face of steady cutbacks and furlough days.

A Department History (DMV website)

DMV Milestones (DMV website)

Much of what the DMV does is of a clerical nature, issuing driver’s and dealer’s licenses, ID cards, titles and registrations. It also investigates consumer complaints, provides driver handbooks and operates a “driver safety” program. California has a Strategic Highway Safety Plan which identifies problem areas around the state, and the DMV is the lead agency responsible for taking action to reduce problems in those areas. Driver safety also means reducing impaired driving, ensuring licensed drivers are competent and addressing safety concerns surrounding very young and very old drivers.

An individual or company wishing to sell automobiles or provide select automotive services – such as smog checks, which are electronically transmitted to the DMV – must be licensed by the department. The DMV has inspectors who make site visits to dealerships to ensure compliance with department regulations. The DMV also issues tests to registered auto salespeople and responds to public complaints about malfeasance.

The department’s work force is broken up into an executive office and nine divisions:

Administrative Services provides the department’s office managers. The Administrative Services Division is responsible for budgetary and fiscal management, human resources, contracts, labor relations and staff training.

Communications Program runs the DMV’s five telephone service centers, writes the DMV manual and runs the website. Employees in this division are also the liaison with courts, law enforcement and government agencies.

Executive Office, in addition to running the department and providing advice to the DMV’s appointed director, conducts audits, ensures Equal Employment Opportunity compliance, handles public affairs, does strategic planning and writes legislation.

Field Operations is the face of the DMV, the people with whom the public interacts on a day-to-day basis in one of the agency’s 169 field offices. They process applications licenses, registrations and identification cards while providing a host of services.

Information Services is DMV’s IT group. It supports the department’s computer systems, telephones, extensive information database and connectivity with outside resources, like law enforcement.

Investigations Division houses DMV’s own sworn peace officers. As the department’s law enforcement branch, it investigates crimes involving the motor vehicle industry, including identity theft, fraud at a dealership and document counterfeiting.

Legal Affairs provides DMV’s in-house counsel, including regulation of the motor vehicle industry, contract review, representation in employee matters before the State Personnel Board, and advice on policy and procedures.

Licensing Operations issues licenses and ID cards, regulates and monitors motor vehicle dealerships and traffic safety schools, and identifies and controls high-risk drivers. It also develops and evaluates the effectiveness of demonstration programs, such as the traffic safety presentations held at high schools.

Motor Carrier division oversees the state’s long-haul trucking industry, of which there are some 84,000 companies operating 1.8 million commercial cargo vehicles. With the CHP, it’s responsible for ensuring safe operation of trucks on state highways.

Registration Operations determines exactly how the department registers and titles vehicles. Responsible for the “how” in registering vehicles, but also responsible for ensuring vehicle owners comply with state clean air and liability insurance requirements.

2010 DMV Strategic Plan (DMV publications) (pdf)

What DMV Does (DMV website)

The money paid by Californians to the DMV fund much more than just the department’s $921 million operating budget in 2011-12. The fees, penalties and other revenue taken in by the DMV go to several state funding accounts, including the General Fund and the Motor Vehicle Account, shared by other departments.

The DMV deposits $2.6 billion into the Motor Vehicle Account. The major sources of this revenue are motor vehicle registrations ($2.1 billion) and driver’s license fees ($194.5 million). The biggest recipient of this revenue is the California Highway Patrol, which receives $1.7 billion from the Motor Vehicle Account. The department projects $515 million in revenue for the Motor Vehicle License Fee Account in 2011-2012. Of this, $325 million goes to fund the DMV’s own operations.  Another $173 million is apportioned to local governments around the state. Small amounts are distributed to other departments: $5.6 million goes to the Franchise Tax Board to fund its operations and another $482,000 goes to the state Controller’s office.

The smallest account the DMV handles is the New Motor Vehicle Account, which funds the department’s New Motor Vehicle Board. This board regulates newly-introduced vehicles, such as hybrids. License fees paid by dealers fund the board in its entirety ($1.2 million).

The rest of the department’s budget comes from the State Highway Account, funded by tolls and other fees paid by drivers ($47 million). Much smaller pots of money come from the federal government ($3.8 million), miscellaneous reimbursements ($13.8 million) and fees paid by boats at harbors ($4.2 million).

Under Governor Jerry Brown’s budget-balancing plan, $71.6 million in revenue taken in by the DMV will go to the General Fund to help offset the state’s budget deficit. Within the department, the majority of spending is on registering vehicles and watercraft. This accounts for $508 million of the department’s budget and 4,009 full-time employees.

The cost of the DMV’s driver licensing and ID card program is $244 million. Some 2,012 employees work in this section. Driver safety is $116 million. This pays for 1,182 employees. The DMV’s Investigative Services spends $50 million and has 450 employees. Another $103 million is spent on its own internal administration, which has 577 employees.

The department’s biggest external contract is with L-1 Identity Solution, the company that produces drivers licenses. The contract is a five-year, $63 million deal.

Top 10 Contractors: According to the DMV’s Administrative and Financial System, the department's largest contractors in 2012 were:

2008-09 California Annual Budgetary/Legal Basis (State Controller’s Office) (pdf)

2009-10 California Financial Report (State Controller’s Office) (pdf)

2011-12 Projected DMV Budget (DMV website) (pdf)

Expensive Technology Glitch

The DMV has been plagued by computer problems for almost as long as there have been computers. And in 1995 they cost the department director his job. Frank Zolin was appointed to the top spot at DMV in 1991 by Governor Pete Wilson and quickly learned that a multi-million dollar project to revamp its computer system was in deep trouble. Eighteen months later he decided the project was “fatally flawed” and tried to pull the plug on it. The state had already invested $50 million.

The experimental “Info/California” pilot program was introduced to the public with great fanfare in October 1991 at locations in San Diego and Sacramento. "It literally puts state government at our fingertips," a computerized image of Governor Pete Wilson said at a Capitol news conference, touting a system that would facilitate vehicle registration renewals, vanity license plate orders and faster service. It was described as an information-dispensing version of an automatic teller machine that would also link up with the Employment Development Department and help people look for jobs in an economy just emerging from recession.

“We’re working smart here,” said Health and Welfare Agency Secretary Russell Gould, whose department was involved in the project. But by April 1994, Zolin was explaining to state legislators that maybe the project hadn’t been such a bright idea after all. In testimony before an Assembly committee, he told them that the project which had already consumed $44.3 million would never work. “This is unconscionable to me!” Democratic Assemblywoman Valerie Brown spluttered. "I can't even explain this to people!"

“I'm having a difficult time explaining it myself,”  Zolin reportedly muttered to himself.

After the hearing, Transportation Committee Chairman Richard Katz, said, “The department's position is that the software maker isn't responsible, the hardware maker isn't responsible and the taxpayers are just going to eat the cost.” Dan Foulk, a Sacramento computer consultant who had worked with the DMV on the venture, called it “a combination of errors from the beginning.”  Faulk said that the plan, to convert a circa-1965 database to a modern relational database using Tandem Cyclone mainframes, was "too giant a leap of technology" and involved insurmountable incompatibilities between hardware platforms and program code.

A year later, when Zolin abruptly resigned, Katz, a Democrat who headed investigation of the debacle, faulted the director for not moving quickly enough to halt the project but still praised him for his management of the department and his loyalty to his superiors. “He was the guy who kind of protected Wilson and the DMV,” Katz said. “Whenever we tried to go higher in our investigation [of the computer snafu], Zolin always stepped into the line of fire. This is an interesting way to thank someone who soldiered for the administration.”

Computer issues continued to be a concern at the DMV after the collapse of “Info/California.” In its 2009-2010 analysis of the department’s IT projects, the Legislative Analyst’s Office noted that over a 3-year period the administration and the legislature had authorized eight different IT projects, with a total original estimated cost of approximately $350 million. At the time of the report, five of the eight projects were still under development. While the Analyst’s Office concluded that the DMV had done a “relatively good job” in implementing the projects, it listed a series of challenges the department faced, including its unclear policy of using outside consultants. The Analyst’s Office suggested the department report regularly at budget hearings about the areas outlined in the report.

Silicon Government in California (Phrack Magazine)

DMV Computer Upgrade Goes Awry (The Risks Digest)

Embattled Director to Step Down (by Virginia Ellis, Los Angeles Times)

DMV Management of IT Projects (Legislative Analyst’s Office)

Medical Marijuana

Medical marijuana has been legal in California since passage of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, although its widespread use didn’t begin until legislation in 2003 created ID cards and established  procedures for obtaining the drug.

In 2008, Rose Johnson of Atwater went to the DMV to renew her driver’s license. Despite her perfect driving record, a DMV employee noted that she had difficulty moving and recommended the department investigate her. Johnson legally used medical marijuana for back and neck injuries, but the DMV pulled her license when they found out about the pot. According to the DMV, Johnson's license was revoked “because of … [an] addiction to, or habitual use of, [a] drug,” thereby rendering her unable to safely operate a motor vehicle. She contacted Americans for Safe Access (ASA), an advocacy group which promotes legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes and research. It sued the DMV on her behalf and in March 2009 the department relented. It reinstated her license and issued a new, written policy before the case landed in Superior Court although the lawsuit continued.

ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford hailed the turnaround. “The new DMV policy is a significant departure from how the agency approached medical marijuana in the past. Drivers will no longer have their licenses suspended or revoked simply because of their status as medical marijuana patients.” Advocates said that the DMV policy of suspending and revoking the licenses of medical marijuana patients was widespread, occurring in at least eight California counties, although the DMV claimed they were infrequent and isolated cases. The department sent out revised field training manuals for its staff in 2009 which clarified that medical marijuana must be treated the same as any other prescription drug.

Johnson and the ASA continued to pursue the lawsuit and in November 2009 they won. The judge’s ruling noted that, “Administrative Officers were operating under the inaccurate and mistaken belief that medical marijuana use was illegal.”

DMV Sued Over Medical Marijuana (by Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times)

Medical Marijuana Program (California Department of Public Health)

Advocates Force Change in DMV Behavior (Americans for Safe Access)

Religious Headgear in Photographs

The DMV requires that all people applying for a driver’s license have a photograph taken with their face visible. This can pose problems for persons of certain religions that require headgear, such as Muslims. But since the department only requires that enough of the face be visible to make it recognizable, the problem has not proved insurmountable. However, every once in a while mistakes and misunderstandings result in conflict.

California has a significant population of Sikhs, particularly in the Central Valley. Sikh religion requires that males keep their hair covered by a turban. In 2008, Ramandeep Singh Anand was told by the DMV staff at the West Covina branch office to remove his turban before having his driver’s license photo taken. He refused and eventually they took his picture, but the ensuing publicity forced an embarrassed DMV to issue a public apology and clarify its policies to reiterate that religious headgear may be worn in driver’s license photos.

Two years later, a woman was similarly indisposed at the DMV branch in Oceanside when she was apparently asked to remove an Islamic scarf from her head. When Dina Rabie produced a New Jersey license that showed her wearing the hijab, she said she was told, “This is not New Jersey or New York. This is California.” She removed the headgear but complained to the department. The DMV field office manager apologized to her and arranged for a new photograph with the headgear but not before the issue made the rounds of anti-Islamic websites. Religious accommodations vary from state to state and have been a source of conflict for years. A similar incident took place at a Poway DMV office in July 2007, according to the department. There, a woman was asked to pull back her hijab to show some of her hair for a photo. But the Council on American-Islamic Relations says incidents like this are rare.

Religious Accommodation in Driver’s License Photos (CAIR) (pdf)

DMV Director Apologizes (SALDEF)

Dude, Where’s My License?

Late in 2010, the DMV introduced a new “state-of-the-art” driver’s license, intended to foil identity thieves and document counterfeiters, while adhering to federal minimum requirements for state-issued ID cards. However, the department was unable to furnish the new licenses on time. Six months after beginning the program, the DMV had a backlog of  850,000 licenses which had been paid for but not received. Although DMV was promising a six- to eight-week period for getting the new card, delays of four months were being reported. The cards are hard to manufacture, with raised writing, tiny perforations and other security features. The company had an 80% rejection rate on some batches of its own cards. To ease this bureaucratic snafu, the department  extended temporary licenses from 60 days to 90 days, but as the Sacramento Bee noted, “If there’s one task at which the DMV ought to excel, the DMV ought to be able to issue driver’s licenses. Apparently, that’s asking a lot.”

DMV was not happy and in November reportedly began firing off e-mails, sometimes by the hour, to the license manufacturer, L-1 Identity Solutions. “Where is the quality control?” an official complained. “I can't believe that there is a machine that allows these types of errors.” In December, the DMV stopped making payments on its $65 million contract. State officials said they might deduct 5%, or $3 million, for nonperformance.

In March 2011, the agency announced that it was working its way through the backlog and all new renewals would continue to automatically receive 90-day temporary licenses.

Waiting for New High-Tech Licenses (Sacramento Bee)

Manufacturer Has Struggled (by Martha Groves, Los Angeles Times)

“Pizza 4U Great Comedians” is not a class for everyone. But if you love pizza and comedy and want to avoid having points on your driving record after receiving a ticket, it could be just the class for you. The DMV certifies hundreds of schools, some of an exotic and entertaining nature, for unfortunate souls who break the law but do it infrequently enough that they qualify for expungement of the points in exchange for eight hours of their time. The fines, however, do not go away. The schools have been around for a long time and under the purview of the DMV. But the internet has made home schooling the venue of choice for many and those schools have not been subject to the department’s authority. That is changing.

Assembly Bill 2499 places home study and online traffic violator school (TVS) programs under the authority of the department. It allows the department to provide operator training requirements, curriculum requirements, prescribe application forms, as well as establish guidelines for those TVS programs not already under its authority. This action will implement the requirement that applicants for an original TVS operator license present proof of completion of an eight-hour TVS operator educational training program and applicants for a renewal TVS operator license to present proof of  completion of a four-hour program.  

The DMV is expected to adopt regulations to implement the legislation in mid-2011.

Current Proposals (DMV website)

Classroom Location List (DMV website) (pdf)

Do Traffic Schools Work? (DMV website)

Mileage Tax

In 2004, newly-appointed DMV Director Joan Borucki nearly got run over by an angry horde of California motorists when she proposed that instead of all drivers paying the same 18-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax, they should be taxed according to the miles they drove. Her plan involved fitting cars with GPS devices that would measure mileage traveled and convey it to the government which would then send drivers a bill. As one wag put it, actor Larry David and his Prius would be charged as much to go 10 miles as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Hummer. The additional specter of Big Brother in the backseat tracking one’s every move drove Californians to distraction. Oregon considered a similar plan a year earlier but it quickly stalled.

Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which monitors privacy issues, said if the device “can communicate with a satellite and then communicate back with another device on the ground, it could be used for something else. That would be my concern: How are limits placed on how this device could be used?” Elizabeth Deakin, a policy expert with the UC Transportation Center, thought those concerns were exaggerated. “While some people are concerned about civil liberties, most people are not,” Deakin said. “One of the things we found from focus groups and surveys is that most people said if the government wanted to track you, they have other ways to do it.”

Advocates for the GPS tracking system argued that it had the potential to make people more thoughtful about how they use their vehicles. Data from the devices could be used to charge people more money for driving on certain busy roads during peak traffic times. “It's just like water,” said former Caltrans official Andrew Ploat. “We're trying to get water and energy meters to tell you what time of day you use energy. You use energy at peak hours on a really hot day, you pay more for that. We need to start sending those price signals to users.”

Borucki was gone within a year of making her proposal when the Democrat-dominated state Senate refused to confirm Schwarzenegger’s choice for other reasons, but the debate lived on. Oregon took another run at a mileage tax in 2008 and in February 2009 U.S. Transportation Director Ray LaHood floated the idea before other members of the Obama administration shot it down. At just about the same time, the governor of Massachusetts proposed having GPS chips installed in cars for the same purpose, while Idaho, Rhode Island and North Carolina kicked the idea around.

But no serious proposal has been put to a vote in any state or at the federal level.

DMV Director Wants Mileage Tax (Engadget)

DMV Chief Backs Tax By the Mile (Los Angeles Times via InfoWars)

Real ID

In March 2005, Congress passed the Real ID Act, which imposes federal regulations on the design, issuance and management of state driver’s licenses – turning them, for all practical purposes, into federal identity papers. The cards utilize state-of-the-art technology, including “intelligent” bar codes, biometric data and counterfeit-proof design. Critics of Real ID cited privacy issues, states rights and high costs.

“Real ID not only means a national ID, but it will mean higher taxes and fees, longer lines, repeat visits to the California DMV, bureaucratic snafus, and, for a lot of people, the inability to obtain a license,” the American Civil Liberties Union warned in 2006. The legislation gave states until 2008 to pass legislation that would facilitate introduction of the new cards. Fourteen states immediately responded by passing legislation banning any such thing. Faced with resistance and an unrealistic time frame, the federal government pushed the deadline for completion back to 2017. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed in his 2009-2010 budget that the state of California provide the DMV with funds to implement Real ID by 2010, citing a threatened loss of federal funding and problems people would have boarding commercial aircraft without the identification.

Calling the proposed funding “premature,” California’s Office of the Legislative Analyst recommended that the money be cut from the budget. It cited the likelihood that the newly-elected president and his administration would be wary of this hugely expensive, unfunded mandate (which proved correct), noted that there probably wasn’t time to comply with the federal government’s requirements for implementation in 2010 and that there would be time to start the process by May 2011 (a federal requirement) if push came to a shove from D.C. The money was not allocated.

By March 2011, 16 states had forbidden compliance with the law, eight states had passed resolutions effectively boycotting it and the federal government had pushed the deadline to begin compliance back to 2013.

Real ID supporters were not happy at the delay. “It is disappointing to me that the Obama administration has chosen to put Americans at risk by having another delay in implementing Real ID,” Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin said in a statement. Backers of the new ID claim that it would help fight terrorism and identification fraud. Since Real ID links to state DMV databases, uses a standard bar code that can be digitally scanned and mandates that original documents such as birth certificates be verified, it could also be used in the purchase of firearms and prescription drugs.

The new California driver’s license, the first redesign of the state ID cards in over 10 years, does not strictly adhere to requirements of the Real ID Act but utilizes some of its features. As of January 2011, according to the DMV, “there continue to be issues with funding, privacy and security and electronic verification systems” related to the IDs. State legislation will ultimately be required to implement the federal law.

Real ID Final Rule (Department of Homeland Security)

Documents Show DMV Concerns (ACLU)

Reject Real ID Project (Legislative Analyst’s Office)

Real ID Pushed Back a Third Time (Homeland Security Newswire)

DMV Quarterly Report on Real ID (DMV website) (pdf)

Not the Real ID (BattleNet)

Joan Borucki, 2004 – 2005

Chonn Gutierrez, 2003 – 2004

Steven Gourley, 2000 – 2003

Ed Snyder,  1999

Sally Reed,  1996 – 1998

Frank Zolin,  1991 – 1996

A.A. “Del” Pierce, 1987  –  1991

Doris Alexis, 1977  – 1985

Herman Sillas, 1975 – 1977