Who Is Responsible for the Abysmal Mess Called the Texas DMV? Meet Ada Brown!

Posted on February 2nd, 2012 11:16am by Wick Allison
Filed under Local Government

brownsm The awfulness of the Texas DMV is the topic of the month (catch up here and here or, for more direct experience,  just try to get a driver’s license).

The DMV falls under the purview of the Public Safety Commission. Its five members can be found here. A glance at the panel reveals the answer to why the DMV is so disasterously managed. Three of the five members are attorneys. One is a private equity type. The fifth is herself a former bureaucrat. In other words, not one member of the commission has run anything in their lives. They have never had to satisfy customers. They have never had to implement processes based on efficiency and performance. The DMV is a mess because its leadership simply doesn’t know how to fix it. It may, in fact, be utterly oblivious to the problem.

The only Dallas member is one Ada Brown, who I am sure is a fine lady and who I know is a brilliant attorney. (I know she is a brilliant attorney because it says right there in her bio that she’s a member of the Mensa Genius Society.)

Ms. Brown practices law at McKool Smith, a very well respected Dallas firm. The next time you’re stuck in a four-hour line at the local DMV, you might want to give her a call at 214-978-4000. As a dedicated public official, she is undoubtedly more responsive to the needs and problems of the average citizen and consumer of DMV services than DMV employees seem to be.

13 comments

  1. So is this just continue to remain yet another mess and unfixed issue in this State?And IF so why is there NO oversight and development or improvements occuring or at least not the last 20 years I have lived here?

    @ 11:59 am on February 2, 2012

  2. And this is an improvement over TxDOT running the whole show how? The old system may have been hide-bound, but it worked, unlike the new improved version.

    @ 12:17 pm on February 2, 2012

  3. A tip : you can get right into the the DMV on really stormy days, any kind of bad weather………..try it.

    @ 1:00 pm on February 2, 2012

  4. Move the whole operation to the Texas Enterprise Fund. They sure know how to get things done. Just ask Gov. Perry how effective they are. The Governor appointed only the most well-qualified competent people to run the Texas Enterprise Fund, unlike whoever appointed those yahoos at the Pubic Safety Commission. Boy, I’ll bet the guy who appointed those incompetents is really embarassed and ashamed.

    @ 1:08 pm on February 2, 2012

  5. Looks like one of the commissioner’s term just expired (Steen). The Guv needs to get a process engineer or someone who has had P&L responsibility in there. Lawyers are smart people but 1) they bill by the hour, and 2) they generate a heck of a lot of paper. We need some piecework rates and a process flow that will fit on one page.

    @ 1:11 pm on February 2, 2012

  6. Thanks for the phone number, Wick. I’ve written it down and have placed the piece of paper right next to my driver’s license, which is to expire in April. Be assured that lawyer Brown will receive a phone call from me, if I am forced into a long wait.
    I read some “fault” comments, in reaction to this post of yours. Truth is, the only people at fault are us. We of the (as Nixon called us) “Silent Majority” have been to silent for too long.

    Phone calls anyone?

    @ 1:28 pm on February 2, 2012

  7. After waiting at the DMV for for 5 hours and getting there before they even opened, this post made me smile, Wick. (I made the mistake of getting Lasik and had to have the restriction taken off, so I couldn’t just renew online like I always had. It almost made me go back to the doctor and ask him to just undo it. )

    @ 1:38 pm on February 2, 2012

  8. AGAIN, “DMV” is the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is overseen by the TEX. DEP’T OF MOTOR VEHICLES BOARD. DMV was spun-off of TxDOT two legislative sessions ago. DMV handles vehicle titles and dealer licensure issues.

    Want a driver license? You go to DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, which is run by the PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION. It has nothing to do with Tx DMV.

    Now I know most folks here are transplants from places where a “DMV” runs the driver license scheme, but it’s never been that way in Texas.

    @ 10:49 pm on February 2, 2012

  9. Oh, and McKool Smith also gave us, inter alios . . . Angela Hunt. Just saying.

    @ 10:52 pm on February 2, 2012

  10. So ALL I want to know is WHEN IS THIS DEPT> GOING TO REALLY BE FIXED?Not just discussed forever like everything else?Can things not get done anywhere for anything or does everyone literally have to come to the point of a revolution to get the correct peoples attention for this?

    @ 9:00 am on February 3, 2012

  11. Thank God that I haven’t had to go down there since 1999. I do know that it took them more than six months to get my change of address license to me. It took 9 months for my partner to get his renewal.

    The Texas DMV is a mess. They all need to be fired.

    @ 4:21 pm on March 30, 2012

  12. This is an embarrassment. This is one of the richest states, and one of the most developed metropolitan areas in the country. The city of Arlington, Texas has a current estimated population of 375,000 people and it has ONE DMV office about the size of a 7-11. I just spent a day with my 16 year old daughter driving from this DMV office to others in neighboring cities. There weren’t even any parking spaces available, with close to 100 people waiting in lines at each. How did this happen? Why isn’t anything being done about it? I’m a contractor, and don’t get paid when I don’t work. It cost me 200 dollars to take a day off today to not be able to get my daughter a driver’s license. I am tempted to just let her drive without a license and contest the fines when she gets caught saying that it was functionally impossible to obtain a license for her.
    If my state requires me by law to have a valid driver’s license to drive, it must also provide me with reasonable means to obtain one. This is state government at its very worst.

    @ 1:19 pm on August 15, 2012

  13. Please fix this mess somebody. It’s truly broken!

    @ 7:33 pm on September 11, 2012