My Scary Encounter with the Department of Motor Vehicles
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My Scary Encounter with the Department of Motor Vehicles

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

The longer I live the more challenging life has become.

Recently, I was forced to confront the fact that I have gotten somewhat older. I have been putting off calling myself a senior citizen. Even though it’s not politically correct, I continue to refer to myself as an “old person.” For some reason, I’m resisting the term senior citizen. Maybe it’s because I’m so old that I’m stuck in my ways. In the interest of full disclosure here, I will turn seventy-six in the early days of 2024. I think seventy-six qualifies as an old guy.

Has the earth begun to move more rapidly?

Everything about life seems to be moving at an accelerating pace. I realize that one possibility might be that I am moving more slowly. But I’m doing my best to keep up. I think I do pretty well for an old guy, considering I am still working somewhere near full-time. I do write a blog, and I do have a YouTube channel. I did need to use the services of some technical consultants. One of my interns showed me how to answer a text message. And a preschooler has been teaching me how to stream videos. Even with the help of some younger people, it’s still getting harder to keep up.

Why did the rules keep changing?

One of the major challenges of adding more trips around the sun to your total is that the rules of life keep changing. Recently, I received a letter from the nice folks at the California Department of Motor Vehicles, informing me that since I was past seventy, I would need to take a written test at the DMV to renew my license. No more mail or online renewals for me. This struck terror in my heart.

What does an old academic do when faced with a challenge?

Of course, the first thing I did was go online and locate a copy of the current driving rules. I was flabbergasted to find out that they had significantly changed the driver’s handbook since I passed my first written test in 1964. Warning here: beware of online guides to passing your driver’s test. Even though I typed “California driver’s exam” into the search bar, I discovered some of the answers they taught me do not apply to California.

What new rules did I need to learn about?

It seems quite a bit of new content has been added to the driver’s handbook since I first learned to drive. I’ll only give you a short summary here.

Bicycle lanes.

I don’t remember anything about bicycle lanes in the driver’s handbooks from the nineteen sixties. If it was there, it wasn’t important. I was learning how to drive, after all. I had been riding a bicycle for ten or twelve years by this point. What was new and surprising were all the rules about when a motor vehicle could enter a bike lane. Bikes have lanes?

Some other things they snuck in just to confuse me.

Most of these changes in the rules came on, so gradually, I simply learned how to cope with them by watching what other people were doing and driving each day. But when it came to passing a written test on these changes in the law, I discovered I really needed to study.

For example, what are the rules applying to roundabouts? What are those blue signs and those blue zones? Of course, I knew about blue zones from having had a family member with a disabled parking permit, but the blue signs, they were a mystery.

I also discovered that there is a new sign appearing on the back of slow-moving vehicles. Apparently, we need to be told that horse-drawn carriages move more slowly than motor vehicles. I didn’t think I needed to be told that with that special sign since I remembered that they were on the roads first, and those of us driving vehicles came later.

Are all the stoners being discriminated against?

As I have aged, I’ve given up a lot of things. Among them are alcohol, drugs, and staying up past midnight. But do you realize that now the use of marijuana is included in the driver’s handbook? Just like open containers of alcohol, possession of an open container of marijuana is not permitted in a motor vehicle. Who knew?

Staying relevant can be quite a challenge as you age.

I felt pretty good that I could use the terminal to take my written driving test. Some people who were ten years younger than me needed to use the written test. And I did pass on my first try. One poor young man, probably barely past seventy, who was ahead of me in line, had just failed his written test for the third time.

I shouldn’t feel too cocky, however. I had just come to the DMV from picking up my new glasses. I now have one pair of glasses for looking at computer screens and a second set specifically for driving.

I have to feel sorry for the clerks at DMV. As hard as it must be for some of us senior citizens to be told our days of driving are coming to an end, it must be very hard for the employees to have to tell someone they can’t renew their license. All the people I talked with that day who worked at DMV were very kind and courteous. But the experience does serve as a reminder to me that the day may be coming when I will not be able to do some of the things, I used to be able to do.

Compared to DMV, my encounters with the technology people over the last few weeks suggest that some of the ghouls, fiends, and sadists who were unemployed after Halloween had moved into the technology sector. But that is a topic for another post.

In the meantime, try to have the best life possible, whatever that may mean to you.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

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