RIVER CITY JOURNAL: DRIVER'S LICENSE PROCESS A TEDIOUS WELCOME

The hoops and hurdles of moving are endless. You have to find a place to live, a doctor, a dentist, a barber, a supermarket, a favorite restaurant, a club, a church, a few friends and the license bureau.

The law is pretty clear. Get Missouri license plates or else. This means going to the courthouse to get a statement saying you are no tax deadbeat. Then off to the license office.

On the way in to the license bureau, you are confronted with the biggest horror of any move: the driver's license desk.

Those of you who still remember when you were 16 probably have a clear memory of getting your first driver's license. What an accomplishment in those first steps toward adulthood. The written test was easier then, or else the brain cells were more cooperative.

In 1972 you returned to Missouri after several years out of state. Shucks, you thought, getting a Missouri driver's license again will be a snap just like the first time.

Not a chance. You flunked the mandatory written test. This meant you had to pass the written test and take the driving test too. What humiliation.

Coming to Missouri from Kansas is probably the biggest shock possible. When you moved to Kansas, all you had to do was show a valid Missouri license. The Sunflower State automatically gave you a Kansas license for four years. No questions asked.

Coming the other direction is a tad more difficult. The written test is hard. Real hard. And the booklet you are given to study doesn't make it much easier. Consider these items:

The Missouri Driver's Guide was last revised in April this year. On page 33 it says you can be convicted of driving while intoxicated with less than 0.10 percent blood alcohol content, and the penalty for a first offense is six months in jail.

On the very next page, the handbook says you can be convicted of driving with excessive blood alcohol content if you drive with more than 0.10 percent alcohol in your blood, but the penalty for a first offense is only 15 days in jail.

Is it really possible that, in the Show Me State, the penalty is lower for driving while you are drunk as a loon than it is for being a bit tipsy?

The best of the worst, though, is on page 57 under the heading "Using Your Horn." Here is what it says:

"There are only two reasons to use your horn: 1. To warn other drivers."

Really. That is what it says. Who knows what reason No. 2 is? Not the nice fellow at the exam place in Arena Park. He laughed when he had the cryptic passage pointed out to him. But he didn't know the answer either.

There are 250,000 copies of the April 1994 handbooks in the hands of folks who want to drive in this state.

With a sinking feeling, you took the test. You missed four of the questions, including the one about the penalty for drunk driving. But you can legally drive in Missouri anyway. As a veteran driver's license examiner in Kansas once said, "All you need to drive in this state are one good eye and a lead foot." Kansas is just loaded with yuk-'em-up folks like that.

Coincidentally, the same day you took the Missouri test you received a license renewal notice from Kansas. In it was a 36-question test and a handbook. In that state, you fill out the test at home and take it to a license office for a renewal.

The thinking is that Kansas drivers ought to read the handbook at least every four years. The take-at-home test is one way of making that happen.

When was the last time you read the Missouri handbook, gentle Missouri motorist?

As you left the exam place, you smiled at the smug expression on a happy 16-year-old's face. Obviously, he had just passed his test.

Whoops. Wait a minute. That was a reflection of you in the glass door.

R. Joe Sullivan is editor of the Southeast Missourian.