30
Renew Your Auto License
Immediately on Expiration Date
If you knew all that is involved in
licensing the state’s 750,000 motor ve
hicles, you’d probably understand why
it is important that you renew your
licenses immediately upon the expir
ation date. So says Carl Gabrielson,
head of the Secretary of State’s motor
vehicles division for 3®v3|ars.
Take, for example, the . story of one
application on a new car license, which
arrives some morning in 'thet secre
tary’s Salem office. If you think all
the secretary has to do is run down to
a basement storeroom and select a
nice high number for you, you’re in
for a surprise.
There are some 284 tegular employ
ees of the Department of State in Sa
lem who spend all their working hours’
processing the estimated 2,000 appli
cations for new and renewed licenses
received each day. In addition, the
Portland branch and other branches
throughout the state bring the motor
vehicle licensing payroll to 378 tegu
lar employees and about 27 extra help
ers. Before a new car license'leaves
the care of the state, approximately
20 of these employees .have helped
process it and ready it for mailing | H
the car owner.
Since 1949, when the “staggered”
licensing was initiated in Oregon, the
Herculean task of keeping records on
all vehicles in the state has beeh fair
ly simple, Gabrielson says.
“There’s, only one difficulty”,
adds. “With no big year-end push to
get plates, it’s strictly.up to the own
er to remember to renew., his license
during the month stamped on the
plates. Some never remember until
they are arrested and fined for wear
ing the wrong year tabs.”
But, even though the staggered sys
tem has simplified the processing job
involved in licensing cars, a trip
through the motor vehicll!» d ivis io n 1
seems to the uninitiated like a trip
lie
through the mirror maze of an amuse
ment park fun house.
When an application arriveWin- Sa
lem, the first person to handle it is
the remittance clerk, a fancy title for
the man who takes the $10 fee, gives I
the application a number,
and then sends it on its way to other
processors.
The application is shuttled to a huge
file-lined basement room, where men
and women check on motor numbers
to make certain that a license has nev
er been issued. In addition, on new
cars, all attached documents must be
carefully scrutinized to assure that all
signatures and so forth are in order.
I f an application passes the probing
eyes of the checkers, it is sent to the
title department where it is again
scanned for legality and validity of
title and then given a title number.
It’s almost official now!
But, first, it goes back to its start
ing place for another fee check and a
balancing of funds. By now, the ap
plication is almost half-way through
the maze, and its next stop is a room
full of typists, who spend eight hours
a day, five days a week typing the
title and tab numbers on each license
slip and new registration card. After
the typists have finished, the applica
tion heads for the “ ditto” room where
a battery of duplicating machines
turns out ten copies of each applica-
tion.
Another crew sorts the copies, one
of which III sent to the huge master or
original application file, its perman- I
ent home. The others find their way
into such complicated files as the en
gine number file, the alphabetical file,
the numerical file, the Portland num
erical, the auditor file and, finally,
several go to special services in
Portland to provide licensing informa
tion to dealers.
This may seem like an undue num-