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September 16, 2005
Maine's BMV Woes
Private sector motor vehicle services may be returning to Maine, thanks to some, er, problems with the current BMV.
AUGUSTA - Mainers are waiting too many hours at regional Bureau of Motor Vehicle offices to complete routine tasks such as vehicle registrations, prompting some lawmakers to consider looking at the private sector to deliver what the state apparently cannot.Heck, even when the computers weren't malfunctioning, the wait times were bad. Plus, there are 6 or seven windows at the local branch of the BMV. Usually, only half of those are used. It's like going to a store (cough...samsclub...cough) with 18 registers built, but only three in use at any given time.Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap was grilled by members of the Legislature's Transportation Committee for nearly an hour Thursday about the lengthy delays at the state's 13 regional BMV offices. Dunlap told the panel that on average BMV customers are waiting more than an hour to register new vehicles or obtain new licenses, but he also acknowledged that in some urban areas such as Bangor, the wait can last for "several hours."
"We're in a pretty horrific situation ... ," Dunlap said. "It's news to nobody that we've had a pretty tough situation in the branch offices this summer with extended wait times and a greatly heightened number of complaints about those wait times and inability to obtain services. Earlier in the summer, that [wait] was ascribed largely to some failures within our computer system to remain stable."
If you don't plan to use the resources you have to serve the public, don't bother building them. Seeing unused windows or registers only makes the wait all the more frustrating.
Posted by slublog at September 16, 2005 10:59 AM
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Comments
Holy cow, Maine has only 13 BMV places for the whole state? Every one of Indiana's 92 counties has at least one branch! I have one 5 minutes away, one 15, and one 30, and both of the first two have ususally no wait.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at September 16, 2005 11:36 AM
Okay, I spoke too soon. There are apparently 20-some-odd vans that do licenses and state IDs. But really, do you have to drive 50 miles or so just to get plates for your new car?
Posted by: MainiacJoe at September 16, 2005 11:39 AM
We have tag agencies all over Oklahoma. They're like storefront BMV's. Last time I tagged a car it took less than 10 minutes from the time I walked in the door until I was driving down the road.
Posted by: digitalbrownshirt at September 16, 2005 09:18 PM