Renewing the driving license

Just had one of those ridiculous conversations that only seem to come up when you talk to people who work for the government.

I only noticed yesterday that my license had expired a few weeks ago. So today I called the Wicklow motor tax office to ask about renewing my license. First, I asked what are the hours for the motor tax office in Bray. 9-12:30 & 2-3:30. {I had hoped the web site was out of date now that they were working in that nice new building.} People used to use the phrase "banker's hours" to describe the short work day that bankers worked, but even bankers didn't manage these kind of hours.

I then asked if notices are sent out when driving licenses are expiring. Of course the answer was "no". It would be too much of a burden to send out notices to hundreds of thousands of drivers when their licenses are about to expire. It's the driver's responsibility to notice when the license is about to expire. {But, who looks at their license? I only happened to see mine was out of date when I was renting a car. Fortunately, the guy from Hertz didn't notice.}

I pointed out to the woman that even New York State's enemies of people - a.k.a. the government - managed to send out renewal notices to what was probably 10 times as many drivers as live in Ireland. "Well, you chose to live in Ireland, blah, blah, blah." As if a stupid policy is somehow justified because I chose to live here.

Then she informed me that the people in the Bray office couldn't actually process my renewal, but would be sending it on to them in Wicklow. But, I could post my application if I wanted. What followed was almost farcical.

• me — Do I have to send in my old license too?
• her — Yes.
• me — But, then I can't drive because I have to have my license with me in order to drive.
• her — that's the law
• me — So, no one should really post in their renewal application, should they?
• her — That's you saying that

It slowly dawns on me that these people are operating a system devised before the recent law change requiring drivers to have their licenses with them. Typical of government employees – they're afraid of any change that might upset their staid existence, so they're just using the same system and helpfully encouraging Ireland's drivers to break the law rather than implement any changes.
{Yes, it's not just Wicklow, but every county in Ireland that is asking for the old license while they process the new one. How many people in Ireland are driving without having their license with them because they had to post in their old one?}