Everyone loves waiting at the DMV, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Right now the wait times at the Johnson County, Kan. offices in Mission and Olathe are 5 hours 4 minutes and 5 hours 15 minutes, respectively.
After the DMV offices that process driver's licenses and vehicle registrations shut down for the first week of May to overhaul their computer system, they reopened with a backlog of customers. More technological problems Monday and Tuesday created more backlogs.
Last week a Johnson County delegation met with officials of the Kansas Department of Revenue to discuss the wait times. In a release Monday, the Department of Revenue announced that there will be grace periods for those who have attempted to renew their vehicle tags or get license plates for new vehicles and are unable to do so before expiration. Details about those grace periods can be found here.
The Johnson County treasurer's office said in a statement:
"Since the new system implementation, both Motor Vehicles Offices have had to discontinue accepting new customers by late morning each day. Motor vehicle transactions, including vehicle registration renewal and title processing, currently require twice the time to process since the system became operational on May 8."
Department employees have been putting in extra hours since the offices reopened, the treasurer's office reported, and some of the work has been outsourced to Kansas' other 105 counties.
The AP reports:
"The state spent $40 million to implement the new system, which eventually will combine vehicle registrations and driver's license records into one system."
The ultimate goal of the new system, said Director of Vehicles Donna Shelite, is "improved customer service and efficiency."
Last Friday, with wait times as long as seven hours and online services unavailable, some customers tweeted their frustration:
@kcur Arrived at Misson DMV at 7:25. Over 100 in line ahead of me. Checked in & they said wait was 3-1/2 hrs, which I'm now approaching.
— kcjazzlark (@kcjazzlark) May 18, 2012
People who need to renew their vehicle tags can do so online here or mail in renewals to their county treasurers rather than visiting an office.