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Another Miserable PennDOT Experience, this Time in Search of REAL ID
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Unless you’re living under a rock, you’re probably aware that a change went into effect two months ago, requiring you to have “REAL ID” in order to get on a domestic flight, or enter a government building, or check out Limerick’s nuclear power plant, if that’s on your bucket list.
If you don’t have REAL ID via your driver’s license, you can use an active passport instead, which isn’t that big of a deal but requires you to carry something domestically that you would normally only use internationally. And foreign travel isn’t as big here as it is elsewhere in the United States, because why go to Europe when you can go to Wildwood again this summer?
Anyway, I’m reading the REAL ID requirements on the PennDOT site. Provide a birth certificate or social security card, proof of residence, yadda yadda. No problem. I’ll just bring this recently-renewed passport and use it to get REAL ID on the driver’s license, then I’m covered with both. Then you scroll down to “ways to apply” and it lists 15 REAL ID centers in the Commonwealth. In our region, there’s KOP, Norristown, and Southwest Philly. Meh okay, but if you keep scrolling it says “Additional locations to get your REAL ID,” and you put in your zip code and it gives you a list. Right up the street is the Harleysville location, so I gather my documents and drive up Sumneytown Pike.
Inside, there are about seven people just sitting there. The woman at the front informs me that this is not a REAL ID center. It’s technically not even a PennDOT center. Apparently they do photo services only, as a CONTRACTOR for PennDOT, which is news to me and apparently everybody else there, because it says PennDOT on the sign hanging above the door. Meantime, my license is expiring in two months, so I figure, what the hell, let’s at least get that renewed and we can use the passport for domestic flights.
From there, the woman tells me they don’t actually have the necessary photo forms in the building. I am instead sent to another shop in this town center called “PA Title and Tag of Harleysville,” and I walk in and tell the woman there I have no clue what’s going on, I’m just trying to get some fuckin’ form to take back to the PennDOT contractor so I can renew my license. The woman looks like she’s done a million of these, i.e. clueless idiots thinking Harleysville is a full-service place, so she has me fill out a “camera card” registration and pay $85 to take it back to woman #1. Then woman #1 fills out some more paperwork and tells me to take a seat before it’s my turn for a photo.
In the meantime, four more people enter the building looking for REAL ID. All four are given the same explanation I’m given. This is not actually a REAL ID center. It’s a PennDOT photo contractor. You have to go to Norristown or Dublin to get REAL ID. A fifth guy, just sitting there waiting for something, chimes in and tells me that his friend went to Norristown a few weeks ago and waited four and a half hours to get his REAL ID. Another guy walks out, saying that his son went to the Philly location and waited five hours to get his REAL ID. Then six more people walk in there’s an argument about taking a number and waiting in line, then the situation calms down and I walk out the door (edit – with the renewed license, but no REAL ID). Everybody is hot and annoyed.
So here’s the real question, since five of us did the same thing – are we all idiots, or do the instructions not make sense? The web guidelines are a little vague and dense at the same time. Which begs the question – why not just do this online anyway? I didn’t have to go anywhere to renew my passport, just filled out some stuff and uploaded a picture. Well, as it turns out, you are only eligible for online REAL ID application in Pennsylvania if “You have presented your REAL ID documents for pre-verification at a PennDOT Driver’s License Center.” But not a PHOTO LICENSE CENTER, of course. So it seems like you gotta go somewhere physically and sit around and wait, whether you want to or not.
Here’s the solution for now, to cut down on confusion:
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com