License Renewal

September 1st, 2008 by Potato

Well, I renewed my license today. I had been in a rush to get it done today because my car is still registered in Toronto, and they are going to start charging a $60 surtax to renew your plates next week — but then I found out that they’re planning on retroactively charging people who managed to avoid it this week anyway, so instead I bit the bullet and changed my address to my London address. At least that will make picking up my mail and voting easier. I still went today because I had some time, and the lady at the MTO office was great — I ran in in a bit of a fuzzle and while I did bring my drive clean report (passed, but the NO was a little higher than I would like) I forgot my insurance, and hadn’t filled out or signed any of my paperwork. The lady just typed it straight into the computer and said it wasn’t any slower than having to try to read my writing anyway, and even waited while I ran back out to the car for my insurance (though I was in the closest spot). There wasn’t anyone behind me in line though, so it’s not like that was a huge favour she did me.

That kind of service at the provincially-operated facility stands in stark contrast to what faced my sister at the recently privatized driver testing centre. She had an appointment for a 4 pm road test to get her full-G license. This was in Barrie, and there was a bad accident that closed the 400. My parents had left early in case traffic was bad, but this was particularly rough. She was told she had to show up 15 minutes early, and she walked in the door 15 minutes before 4. She was 2nd in line. When she got to the front, the wench there took her test fee and told her that it was ten to and she wouldn’t be allowed to take the test, bu-bye. No make-up, no understanding that she was there 15 minutes early, just a thanks for your test fee to pad our bottom line, suckers.

Back to the Toronto tax thing: I don’t necessarily disagree with it. It’s not a terrible way for the city to try to get some extra money from the drivers who use the roads… but it’s steep for a surtax (almost as much as the provincial registration was to begin with), and moreover it’s really bad to try to squeeze the people of the city to make ends meet when the city seems to have such poor fiscal restraint. Granted, I’m out in London so I don’t get much Toronto local news, but the optics don’t look good from out here. To top that off, the tax was a bit of a surprise, and wasn’t part of any councillor’s platform in the last election.

One Response to “License Renewal”

  1. Ben Says:

    I hope your sister wrote a letter of complaint to the Ministry about her treatment at the testing centre, because that’s just plain ridiculous. That kind of behaviour should be considered outright fraud, in my mind.