Benjamin vs. BMV

The following story has been slightly edited from its original appearance in the Chronicles in order to clear up some of the nested parentheticals of which I was so fond in the late 90’s. It was first published on Monday, January 5th, 1998, and what I’ve always loved about this story is the fact that the clerks at the DMV were the ones who told me, quite incorrectly, what the BMV meant in the first place. This was the first in a long line of lessons geared towards teaching me that nobody from Indiana is to be trusted.

I would like to make this story a link from a smaller post, but I cannot figure out how this might be accomplished at this time, so here it is in its entirety. I will post Remote Control Terrorism under separate cover tomorrow, along with an explanation of the meaning of Companion Blog.

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I normally tend to believe that stereotypes, perhaps even most stereotypes, are unjustified, based in fear and misunderstanding.

On the other hand, there's Indiana.

Today's adventure involved getting a new driver's license and changing the title of the car. Indiana law states that within 60 days of your establishing full time residency (defined as a period of continuous and primary residency within the state borders of 180 days, or that point in time during which more than 50% of your total income is derived from in-state funds - who the hell writes these laws?) you must have your tags and title transferred to Indiana State tags and titles. So, I go to the BMV (not, for whatever reason, the DMV, or Department of Motor Vehicles, but the BMV, which doesn’t even mean Bloomington Motor Vehicles, but rather the Bureau of Motorized Visitation, as if it were some sort of holy or celestial event) to get all of this done. Well, in order to get my GA State license transmogrified to an Indiana driver's license I have to take, *gasp*, a test.

The Indiana driver’s licensing test is a unique experience. I can't even begin to make a guess as to when the testing system was designed - perhaps something in the mesozoic era. You stand at a booth and sit through the equivalent of a slide show. There's a video screen set into a desk, and what sounds suspiciously like a slide projector underneath it projects a picture with a question on it onto your screen. You have three buttons to push to indicate your response (and not anything so cool as touch-sensitive buttons on the screen itself, nosir, these are the kinds of buttons you find only on really old elevators in your grandmother's condominium - big black knobby monstrosities which you have to push in about 2 inches before they register, and when they register it’s even odds as to your getting the shit shocked out of you) and a button to push (same kind) to signify that you pushed one of the other buttons and meant it.

Why the second button, I asked?

Because, they told me patiently, in case you changed your mind.

There're only three, I pointed out, how much room for error do I really need here?

Well, I was informed, some folks don't do very well and we like to give 'em the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, should you get one of the questions wrong, the machine emits a loud thumping sound, the entire thing shakes, and the bottom part of the screen falls away (literally - I think this is what the thumping noise is - the bottom part of your screen hitting the ground - they must raise it back up again with a piece of twine or something) to reveal the correct answer. As it turns out, I got two out of 20 wrong – enough to pass the test.

The first one I got wrong was, "What is a safe distance to follow another
vehicle?" My choices were :

a) 1 second behind the leading vehicle
b) 2 seconds behind the leading vehicle
c) 100 feet behind the leading vehicle

Well, since this was a subjective question, not a law question, I figured I couldn't get it wrong so I pushed c) , since it was the only actual distance listed in my three choices, the other two being lengths of time and not at all relevant to the question. Turns out that their answer is: b) two seconds. After the test I pointed out that :

1. the quesiton was a matter of opinion and not, therefore, a proper question for a driving LAW test,


2. there's no mention of conditions of the road or the speed I'm driving, all of which are factors, and 2 seconds can't possibly cover the entire spectrum of possibilities, even if it were a distance, and


3. the question asked for a distance, not an amount of time and therefore the only right answer had to be the only distance listed

"Uh-Uhn," the clerk lady type said, "then why is the distance between stars and stuff called a light-year?"

Hiding my amazement that she had ever heard of a light-year in the first place, I explained the concept to her and then asked for a calculator so I could show her exactly how many feet a light-year was. That was when she lost interest in the topic and got a little miffed. They promised to make note of my objections. I decided not to tell them that I come from a big city where, no matter the conditions, you follow less than 1 car-length from the guy in front of you so some other asshole can't cut you off.

The other one I missed related to an Indiana driving law that specifies (in actual feet, not in seconds) exactly how far ahead of your turn you must turn on your indicator. They've made this a law. My choices were :

a) 50 feet
b) 100 feet, or 200 feet for faster driving, such as freeway or speedway
c) whenever

You think I'm making this up. I'm telling you the truth.

My answer was 50 feet. I figured since they had probably put so much detail into the b) thing that was probably right, but since it was my last question, and I had only missed the other one about the following distance, I went with a) 'cause that's generous for most Atlanta drivers, who go with c) most of the time themselves, if they turn them on at all.

Other questions on the Indiana Driver's License Test:

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(picture of a "Do Not Enter" sign, which, in case you haven't seen one
lately, says in big red letters "DO NOT ENTER" on it)

This sign means :

a) Do Not Enter
b) Yield
c) You may safely ignore this sign

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Not to be outdone:

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(picture of a speed limit 40 sign)

When you see this sign you may travel :

a) 45 miles an hour
b) 40 miles an hour
c) out of state drivers do not have to obey speed limit signs

(you haven't any idea the desire I had to push "c", hoping against hope
it would be true)

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Lastly:

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(picture from the rear of a car passing another car, halfway between the two lanes & straddling the center line, which, coincidentally, is solid on his side, also with the wrong turn signal on)

The solid line on your side of the lane means:

a) You may pass at will
b) Do not pass
c) You are on the wrong side of the road

I burst out laughing at both this one and the Do Not Enter one, prompting a few disgruntled looks from the visitation clerks in my direction - in my mind I kept picturing some poor guy leaning out of his window and yelling out at the cars passing by him going the other way "You're on the wrong side of the roadja damn fool!!"

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As a postscript, there are two errata which I am compelled to report:

1. The place actually is the DMV. I read the sign wrong as I first walked in and thought of it wrongly the rest of my days in Indiana.
2. When I asked the clerk when I first walked in about why the place was called the BMV and not the DMV I was not corrected, but was instead given the above explanation of Visitation as opposed to Bureau (I guess I asked the question convincingly enough that the clerk assumed I was, in fact, correct), and to this day I am loathe to admit that this is not its actual name.