FOI at work: Failure rates vary greatly among Calif. DMVs

For those needing an Orange County, Calif., driver's license, you may want to steer clear of the Santa Ana DMV office ... or really brush up on your defensive driving skills.

There are huge discrepancies for pass-fail rates of behind-the-wheel tests at Orange County Department of Motor Vehicles offices.

For example:

•At the Santa Ana DMV office, 112,276 people took the test over the last eight years and 39 percent failed.

•At the Fullerton DMV office, 42,216 of 115,074 drivers failed. That's 36-percent failure rate.

•Meanwhile, at the San Clemente office, an average of 23 percent of the 61,305 drivers who took the test over the past eight years failed. And, last year from January to October, just 17 percent of the drivers who took the test in San Clemente failed.

•Generally, the DMV offices in southern Orange County have lower failure rates. In Laguna Hills, an average of 25 percent have failed since 2000.

More here.