NationStates Jolt Archive

Until last year, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Northern Ireland was located smack in Belfast city centre, right beside where buses from all over the city come in. This was where you could pay your car tax, collect forms for registering your car, for applying for your driving licence etc.

Then it moved to an business park out of the city centre, with one bus route going past it.

It doesn't have parking. At the driver and vehicle licensing centre.

Just another example of the governmental stupidity to be found worldwide.

Anybody got any other examples?

Yeah, you can't go into a Citizenship and Immigration Centre and pick up a form to update your Citizenship card (my husband lost his). You have to send a request to a centre in...where the hell is it? Nova Scotia I think. And can you get a request form at a Citizenship and Immigration Centre? OF COURSE NOT!! You have to download one from the Internet.

Don't you just get the forms from the post office and send them to swansea? Or are NI licenses different to the mainland?

Don't you just get the forms from the post office and send them to swansea? Or are NI licenses different to the mainland?
NI has its own departments for most things...left over from when we were independent of the UK in almost everything but name (i.e. until 1972).

Very. Probably saves them money or something. Curse you capitalism

NI has its own departments for most things...left over from when we were independent of the UK in almost everything but name (i.e. until 1972).

That sucks for you. All the forms are pretty much in every post office on the mainland now, and you do everything by mail.

Even my brother who lives up on Loch Tummel has no problem. (And he is seriously in the sticks).

That sucks for you. All the forms are pretty much in every post office on the mainland now, and you do everything by mail.

Even my brother who lives up on Loch Tummel has no problem. (And he is seriously in the sticks).
It's highly probable that they're available in other places like Post Offices...but it's the principle of the thing, you know?

Just another example of the governmental stupidity to be found worldwide.

Anybody got any other examples?Just about every governmental decision here is stupid :p

I think Lacadaemon has a point though - I believe you can carry out all vehicle licensing, even here, via mail (though I wouldn't sware to it, since I deliberately avoid that side of things and let the other poor bastards around me take the flack :D). That said, given that the typical bureaucracy you can expect here when doing anything non-personally (and even personally in many cases), it was far handier just to dander into their shitty offices.

Just about every governmental decision here is stupid :p
Ah yes...like a motorway that was built from either end, but doesn't actually meet in the middle, and has no direct link between the two sections.

And another that has roundabouts on it and walls instead of hard shoulders, causing massive gridlock when more than one car tries to use it.

Ah, Northern Ireland, I do love you...

I think Lacadaemon has a point though - I believe you can carry out all vehicle licensing, even here, via mail (though I wouldn't sware to it, since I deliberately avoid that side of things and let the other poor bastards around me take the flack :D). That said, given that the typical bureaucracy you can expect here when doing anything non-personally (and even personally in many cases), it was far handier just to dander into their shitty offices.
Yea, like I said, you probably can get them other places...but it's the principle.

Ah yes...like a motorway that was built from either end, but doesn't actually meet in the middle, and has no direct link between the two sections.Genius indeed. Also x intended slip roads to said motorway were half-built, then the DoE seemingly got bored and left them. Ah, the fabulous DoE. Let's dig a big pointless hole, stare down it for an hour without doing anything remotely useful, then go for a cuppa and a fag, come back and stare some more, then go home! (To be fair, I'm sure that's not just applicable here).

Yea, like I said, you probably can get them other places...but it's the principle.Sorry, I was typing my previous post when you posted yours. I agree with you though; there may well be other ways and means, but it's still fundamentally stupid.