My wife and I were summoned to the DMV, by a stern and scary letter, because my mother died last year and the DMV would therefore not renew the registration on the vehicle I co-owned with my mother unless the title was altered to reflect that I was now the sole owner. That's right, just because my mother died, it would become illegal for me to drive the vehicle I co-owned after August 31, 2015, unless I genuflected to the DMV and paid the proper fees. My wife and I arrived at the Charlottesville DMV on Pantops around 10 a.m. and were told the DMV was very sorry my mother had died, just as it had stated in the letter. We were still waiting by noon. There were over ten stations for the bureaucratic officials, but only 3 or 4 of them were occupied at any given time. Those few officials present frequently disappeared to take breaks, lunch, etc. ALL the miserable waiting faces that had been present when we arrived were gone by noon and had been replaced by another crowd, and STILL we waited. After those two hours of waiting, my wife went to the "greeter" who assigns numbers to arriving DMV victims and was told we had 11 people still ahead of us. At least 25 more people were called, and still we waited as the clock ticked toward 1 p.m. My wife (a brave soul) then insisted on seeing the manager! The manager emerged and told my wife that a triage system is used in assigning numbers to DMV patrons and that we were, regrettably, in a low-priority group. We'd just have to wait until our low-priority-group number was called. And so we waited at least 45 more minutes. Toward 2 p.m. our number was finally called, and the matter of my dear dead mother was resolved at a cost of about $120 for the re-titling and a new registration for 2 years. Thank you DMV for your sincere condolences and for the caring service we received, paid for by my taxes and those of all the other DMV victims out there. We are so glad to hear about the "triage" system that makes some people's waiting time more important than other people's waiting time. Alas, the death of my mother, so mourned by you, was viewed as low priority. I hate you. read more