DMV Crisis Solved–Privatize It!

(Fred Weinberg/The Penny Press) – We’ve had some interaction with Nevada’s Department of Motor Vehicles recently, and we were not surprised to see a story in last Saturday’s Las Vegas Review Journal about people who sleep overnight in a line at the DMV hoping someone will not show up for a driver’s license test so they can take their test.

Now that’s a way to encourage respect for state employees and state government. Why don’t you tell everyone in those lines to pretend they’re in a line at a Vegas nightclub waiting to see Paris Hilton?

When you have a state agency so badly managed that it takes up to six weeks to schedule a driver’s license test, then many people just tell the state to go to hell and drive anyway.

Which brings up something we’ve written about before.

Privatize the agency—or at least the functions it cannot efficiently handle.

The Federal Aviation Administration uses contract check pilots. There hasn’t been a crisis in getting pilot’s licenses.

But here is the logic from the state’s employee union head, Vishnu Subramaniam of AFSCME:

“I think you would see more people failing their driving tests, since it would be in the best interests of their company to fail drivers and require retests. Now, examiners have no financial interest if people pass or not. Their only motive is to try to protect the driving public.”

In the immortal words of John Stossel, give me a break!

Most driver’s ed students fail their first test now. And then have to wait six weeks to schedule another test.

Here’s Subramaniam’s real problem with such a radical idea.

“First it is the kiosks, then the driving examiners,” he said. “What’s next?” he asked the Review Journal’s writer.

What indeed?

How about this? A thorough review of each and every function of state government with an eye towards privatizing every function that does not need to be handled by a state employee.

We need to be clear here.

There are many functions which need to be handled by government employees. Aren’t there?

You wouldn’t want to be stopped and arrested by private police. You wouldn’t want a mercenary force to replace the National Guard.

I’m sure there’s a bigger list than that, but right now I just can’t make a great case for any other function. In fact, I invite our readers to add to that list—if you can.

In the meantime, DMV Director Bruce Breslow is “studying” and “analyzing” the issue. He and Governor Brian Sandoval would then have to go to the legislature for permission to do this in 2013.

Then, of course, after we hear the liberal union-owned democrats from Clark County—or as I’ve come to think of it, Somalia (a failed state run by warlords)—and the legislature bows to the wishes of the real people, it’ll take a year to implement the idea.

By that time, you may have a sizable population driving around without driver’s licenses. And that’s making the assumption we do not face that situation already.

Here’s a better idea.

Stop “studying” and “analyzing,” call a special session of the legislature, and have them get off their butts and do something for the people for a change. How about September 15th?

It’ll take one day and Messrs Breslow and Sandoval will have shown the people who own this state that they are willing to take decisive action to solve a very real problem.

In fact, if they were to pull of something like that, they might get the kind of respect from taxpayers that Sheriff Joe Arpaio gets in Arizona.