The Blue Wonder only failed three out of the four emissions tests – not bad for a $300 car. And the nice thing about Washington is that you can buy your way out of emissions – if I do $150 worth of work on the car, it doesn’t have to pass. The tricky part is that I only have 15 days to transfer the title or I start getting fined. And I need an emissions test for title transfer and registration. So I realized that I’d have to transfer the title first, then take care of registration. But I need a Washington drivers license for the title transfer. But that’s actually ok, since the Seattle bars have been giving me a hard time about the fact that I have a rather dubious moustache in my current license.
So yesterday was a two hour wait for a written test, after which I needed to schedule a driving test, which normally takes a few weeks. Luckily a spot opened up for this morning as I was sitting at the scheduling desk, which would have worked out fine except that Craig went biking and took his keys five minutes before I had to leave. So… one panicked last-minute phone call to a nearby friend and I had a loaner car, enabling me to pass a 15-minute driving test, wait three hours (no exaggeration), and then spend 3 minutes having my photo taken. I’m now a Washington resident (so long, income tax)!
Title and registration were taken care of this afternoon and my car is scheduled for emissions repair on Friday, which means that pass or fail, after Monday I will have a car that I can legally (though not skillfully) drive around Seattle.
Whew!
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Welcome to the proud ranks of Washington residents. Enjoy the heat while we’ve got it — it’ll be raining in a couple of months. Maybe I’ll see you at Folklife next year.
That sucks the US drivers have it so easy, darn the UK lol