At last!

At last.

A bona fide perk of old age.

At least for us elders in California.

Scarcely able to believe what I was seeing in the San Diego Union Tribune, I struggled to read the fine print.

Californians 70 years old and above will no longer need to take the written driver test, the DMV announced this week. As of Oct. 1, those older drivers whose licenses expire as of 2024 won't need to take the written knowledge test.

Could this be true? True for even me? Me, who had let the expiration date on her driver’s license slip by without renewing last May? Me, who had a speeding ticket less than two years ago which the officer kindly reduced to 70mph? Me, who had downloaded the California Driver’s Handbook, intending to study but had found a way to procrastinate. And procrastinate.

Could it be possible that I would never again have to know that it is illegal to drive using only parking lights, that my headlights should be dimmed to low beams within 500 feet of a vehicle coming toward me, that broken white lines separate traffic lanes on roads with two or more lanes in the same direction, that I can drive in a bike lane within 200 feet from the turn or that to merge, enter, or exit traffic I need a full block on a highway, which is about 300 feet?  

Falling into the too-good-to-possibly-be-true category, I headed to my local Department of Motor Vehicles and stood in line. A very long line of folks, old and young, cheerful and pissed off. I waited forty-five minutes alternating between anguish and anticipation.

The friendly looking woman behind the counter motioned me forward. “I…I read in the paper this week that people over seventy no longer must take the written driver’s test for renewal. Does that apply to me?”

“It could,” she answered. “Step over to that pink line.”

I stepped into another excruciatingly long wait but pulled out my cell phone and was able to reach the Genius level in Spelling Bee with the time. Genius ranking without the pangram. Small victories.

A fully-upholstered middle-aged man wearing wire rim glasses took my expired license and spent the next minutes, which seemed like hours, pushing keys on his keyboard, checking the monitor, and shuffling papers.

I couldn’t breathe.

At last, he spoke.

“Well, little lady, I don’t want to deprive you of anything you love doing, but…”

“I really don’t love it,” I snapped back.

He smiled and stapled two pages together. “This is your temporary until you get the plastic card.”

Sigh.