In the District, contesting tickets in person can require a morning or afternoon for the trip to the DMV's 65 K Street NE headquarters, where motorists slump in bucket seats in a windowless waiting room while a television intermittently repeats a public service announcement promoting photo-enforcement cameras.

It's a place where people fight off drowsiness, roll their eyes and occasionally lash out in ways that leave the examiners wishing they had alarms to alert security, instead of switches behind their desks that turn on a light outside the door.