Our Story

Randolph, NJ—Times are hard for local DMV inspectors who seek to bring purpose to their jobs as advances in technology and relaxed legislation have all but made the inspectors’ jobs irrelevant. Still, diligent employees continue to enforce stringent inspection requirements in the hopes of keeping the roads safe.

Robert Engle, 47, is the Inspection Chief at the Randolph facility. “The four-year requirement has been a blow to morale,” confesses Engle, referring to the recent legislation to lengthen the required two-year inspection cycle to a four-year requirement.

“I mean, only a few years ago, we were inspecting cars every year. The long waits, impatient motorists, and red tape really made you feel like you were fighting for something. Now, well, we just have to work that much harder to keep the scum off of our roads and highways.”

Just behind Engle, no less than five DMV attendants have just finished a 31-minute-long inspection of a 1997 Pontiac Bonneville before reluctantly passing the car. Two lanes over, inspection team members let out a shout for joy and deliver high-fives over a broken turn signal.

Engle, a resident of Kenvil, explains, “It gets harder and harder to find reasons to fail people these days, but we’ve learned to pick out the ones that shouldn’t be on the road. Give us enough time–we’ll find a reason.”

In response to the loosened laws, DMV officials have seen fit to take a hard line on what little authority they have left by inflicting personal or even bodily injury on motorists who violate code. Bureaucrats are quick to defend the measures in the act of keeping roads safe for law-abiding motorists.

Critics, however, insist that the DMV employ seek a cathartic expression of their frustration and insecurities. Indeed, many employees at the Department of Motor Vehicles are failed applicants to other, more respected state institutions such as the New Jersey State Police, NJ Transit, and the Department of Sanitation.

Outside, a waiting motorist shifts uncomfortably in his car. A bright-red rejection sticker and what appears to be a pair of crutches are visible through the windshield of his Chevrolet Cavalier.

“We had an elderly guy bring in an old Aries K a couple of weeks ago,” recalls 25-year-old junior inspector Jimmy Mattox. “It took us about a half-hour, but we finally found out that his tire pressure was a little low in the front left tire. I grabbed the guy by the shoulder and slammed him against the hood of the car and I was like, ‘If you ever, ever bring this piece of garbage in here again, we’re gonna give you a lot more than a sticker, old man–got it?’ [Laughs] I mean, we’ve got a duty to keep the roads safe from people like that, you know?”

Nearby, two young children watch in tears as their mother is publicly ridiculed by an attendant over a leaky gas cap.

Engle agrees, “I tell people, the police might deal with some of New Jersey’s problems, but this is where the action is–right here. We’ve got a job to do. We call it like we see it and I think our streets are safer because of us. Think about it for a minute. Can you imagine what New Jersey would be like without our Department of Motor Vehicles?”