Gov. Lamont surrounded by DMV chief Sibongile Magubane and deputy Tony Guerrera at Tuesday's event.
Unlike in the past, there was no line wrapped around the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Wethersfield the day after Memorial Day — but Gov. Ned Lamont was there, to claim credit.
He was joined Tuesday by his DMV Commissioner Sibongile Magubane and other officials to offer an update about how the state has cut wait times at offices statewide by moving many transactions online. (Click here for details on the DMV website.)
The Covid-19 pandemic hurried that process along, with the state making it possible to renew licenses online, for instance.
Pre-pandemic, people dreaded making an appointment because it meant they would have to take nearly half of a day off of work. Now, wait times have shrunk from hours to under 20 minutes in most cases, officials said.
Going to the DMV “can be burdensome,” Lamont stated. “Any time I see a line, my hair is on fire.” He said his team will continue to improve the website to improve the process for scheduling an appointment, for instance.
Mark Raymond, state government’s chief information officer, mentioned the importance of “meeting people where they are,” and creating online services that are accessible to all.
Since the DMV website began to provide web-based services in 2019, it has hosted 750,000 online transactions, according to Lamont. The 20 types of available transactions include license renewal, address changes, commercial driver self-certifications, property tax checks, vessel registration renewal, and replacement of damaged license plates.
State Sen. Will Haskell of Westport used to be bombarded constituent emails with questions pertaining renewing licenses, booking license or permit tests. He said he no longer does.
“My goal is to get people online, not in line,” Haskell said.
People need to come into the DMV, for driving tests and inspections. Those citizens “will get a little more personal attention” and benefit from a “one-stop shop” with a central area to have multiple questions answered, Lamont promised.
The state Department of Labor is next up with an enhanced online platform to be unveiled on July 5, the governor said.
The horrors of the DMV were always more legend than truth. Sure, there were some not-so-great encounters with bureaucracy, but in recent years, long before the pandemic, the procedures were steadily improved, so that (for example) waiting in a line for a long time only to get to the front and be told you should have been in a different line, became a thing of the past. There was a line at the door that moved quickly, and the job of the staff person at the end of it was to direct you to the right window.
In nearly fifty years living in New Haven, the only hours-long wait I ever had to deal with at the DMV was when my kid, along with seemingly every other sixteen-year-old in New Haven County, waited to get her learner's permit until till the very last day before the new, stricter rules went into effect. That, indeed, was epic.