Just Getting a Learner’s Permit Can Be a Long Drive

“So,” my daughter said casually the other day, peering at me over a pile of laundry, “I made an appointment to get my learner’s permit.”

OK, I thought, that’s fine. Until this punch line: “I have to be at the DMV in Palmdale at 8:50 a.m. on Tuesday.”

Palmdale? But we live in Studio City. A DMV office is six miles from our house, in Van Nuys. Palmdale is more than 50 miles away.

But here’s the rub: The DMV is so understaffed that appointments in Van Nuys, Glendale, Hollywood or any of the other offices near our house can’t be had for three or four weeks.

So what’s the rush? Why not just make an appointment for next month?

The DMV’s computers take appointments only for the next 30 days. If the office is booked, you can’t make an appointment there, no matter how long you would have been willing to wait.

The Winnetka office, for example, isn’t terribly far from us. When I checked the DMV website for an appointment, the response was: “Sorry, no appointment is available for this office. Please try another office.”

Just for fun, I plugged in the San Clemente office -- even farther from our house than Palmdale -- and got the same answer.

Ordinarily, we might have chosen to wait a few weeks for an appointment nearby. But Natasha, my daughter, is taking a driver’s education class from the Auto Club of Southern California, and the students are expected to obtain their learner’s permits by the third week of class, when behind-the-wheel lessons begin. We paid $500 for this, and she can’t miss the start date.

People who need to renew before their birthdays are in the same boat; even if they plan, they can’t book a date more than 30 days in advance. If they wait, there’s no guarantee that a nearby branch will have an appointment available in time.

In Natasha’s case, the idea of going to Palmdale came from her driver’s ed teacher, who suggested that the students seek appointments there or in Ventura.

I came up with another possibility on the DMV’s website: We could always drive to the Mojave and get her test in Ridgecrest. It’s hours away, but they make next-day appointments.

There’s also the option of showing up without an appointment at a closer DMV office. Natasha’s teacher advised that we should arrive an hour before the doors open and be prepared to wait for hours.

“When we started doing our classes a couple of years ago, the wait for DMV permit appointments was just about two weeks,” said Auto Club spokeswoman Marie Montgomery. “Since the fall, it’s gone up to three to four weeks.”

As a result, she said, driving instructors are telling parents to make appointments for their children at outlying DMV branches or show up unannounced at a nearby office and wait.

“You’re there anywhere from one to three to four hours,” Montgomery said.

The state blames the problem on the DMV’s loss of 1,000 employees during the administration of former Gov. Gray Davis and the early months of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure. Waiting time at some branch offices stretched to more than four hours for those without appointments.

After a state report detailing the department’s problems was released, the administration gave interim DMV chief Chon Gutierrez permission to hire 400 people. As of last week, 321 people had been hired, and the agency hopes to bring in about 80 more over the next few weeks, according to DMV spokesman Bill Branch. But it takes time to train new employees for the more complicated work, like administering driving tests. So the new people are fingerprinting, taking photos and doing other relatively simple tasks, he said.

“It’s too early yet to really see a significant impact from the new hires,” said Branch, who predicts that the lines will ease by late June.

The agency also plans to use what Branch called “revolutionary” techniques for speeding the long lines. Among them, he said, is an ATM-style machine that would spit out a vehicle registration sticker after reading a driver’s credit card. Another plan is to allow auto dealers to register new cars from their showrooms.

For now, though, it still takes a long time to get through the line.

We finally decided that the crack-of-dawn Van Nuys idea probably was equal in time to the Palmdale option.

But there’s one other thing.

According to Montgomery, about a quarter of the kids who take the Auto Club class fail the DMV’s written test the first time.

So, we may have to go back.

If you have a question, gripe or story idea about driving in Southern California, write to Behind the Wheel c/o Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or send an e-mail to behindthewheel@latimes.com.