I though the $50 fee was a bit high until I received my new “operators” license in the mail yesterday. It was sent to me by the State of New Hampshire’s DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY’s DIVISION OF MOTOR VEHICLES. The letterhead was printed on heavy bond paper and listed John C. Barthelmes as the COMMISSIONER OF SAFETY and Virginia C. Beecher as DIRECTOR OF MOTOR VEHICLES (I can’t help but imagine Ms. Beecher on a pedestal with a wand in her hand, directing thousands of driver-less vehicles). With all these departments and bureaus, I can understand why a license costs so much.
However, I do wish the State of New Hampshire would spend some of the $50 license fee to hire someone to read over the letters they send out. It would be nice if these form letters made a little more sense. As an example (and before we even get to the body of the letter) they have my name and address correct, then use “Dear Citizen” as a salutation. Kind of impersonal, when these days even Publisher’s Clearinghouse can figure out how to pepper my name throughout a document to give it the “human touch.”
In the first paragraph, I’m told to ” . . . please find your permanent driver license, which is valid until the date of the expiration . . . ”
First off, there is no need to find anything. It’s a one page letter. The license is glued to the bottom of the page, it’s very shiny and has my picture on it, all of which makes it pretty hard to miss. And since when does anything “permanent” have an expiration date? Do we really need clarification on when the license is valid? I just assumed a licence is valid every day until it expired. Are there certain days when it’s not valid?
In the next paragraph I am asked to ” . . . verify that the information on your driver license is accurate.” I didn’t place any information on this license, I though I was paying the State of New Hampshire $50 to do that! I’m also advised a renewal notice will be sent automatically, prior to the expiration of my (permanent) license and if not, I should contact them. I’m half-tempted to write and tell them I haven’t received my renewal notice yet. It is, after all, prior to the expiration date.
Finally, if I have any questions or comments, I may” . . . visit our website at www.nh.gov/safety/divisions/dmv. I did this but didn’t see any sections for questions or comments. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. I did see a picture of Virginia C. Beecher, though. I’ll have to revise my image of her to include all those cars backing up quickly.
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