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Comment by pard68 | Hacker News Reader

The privatized "DMV"s in Missourri are amazing. You have a question? Call your local "License Office" and you don't have to go through a robo call router, it rings and a person picks up. Go into the office and you get served almost immediately (depending on volume/time/location). In MO, vehicle registration is every second year (even year cars in even years, odd in odd). I am in every y ear for one vehicle or another. Last year I registered three cars in under five minutes. No papers to fill out, just showed them my tax invoice, my insurance card, and my inspection cards. They checked a few boxes, and told me to have a nice day.

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Amazing you say? I have the opposite opinion and think they're quite trash. The ones I visit almost always have a long wait, multiple display TVs with non-stop advertising on them, the employees are frequently cantankerous, and being a for-profit entity, the amenities are always as sparse as possible or in need of repair.

Overall a rather soul-sucking example of a captive market optimizing for profit.

Also have the same experience with MO DMVs being slow like DMVs commonly are. I think being for profit also makes the quality of the locations inconsistent [1] and that is mostly due to no state funding.

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ozarksfirst.com/news/why-so...

For most common purposes the CA DMV experience has really improved. Most things can be done online quite easily and they actually have a decent website

Yea they have made great strides here. I have only had to go a single time in the past ~8 years and that was to provide documentation for the Real ID.

For additional anecdata, I've had the same experience at the government-run Indiana BMV, and most recently, was able to go in and renew my plates from a kiosk in the lobby without waiting or talking to a human at all. When my wife changed her name and renewed her plates, the whole process took about 10 minutes, including sitting and waiting to talk to one of the 20 or so humans working there.

TX here. I don’t know the last time I went to the DMV. Everything and I mean everything can be done online

The last time I had to go into a DMV in TX was when I had let a motorcycle's registration lapse >1yr. It took going in-person to show some documents (I think the title?) to get it re-registered.

Other than that, for someone who already has their vehicle properly registered and they don't need a new photo for the DL, yeah you never really need to go in.

Also, last time I went in, they offered a text message queue system. Sign up online ahead of time, pick a rough time slot, they text you when you're ~10 minutes and then ~5 minutes until your number, then when you get in your number is one of the next ones up. I spent maybe five minutes total in there.

EDIT: Thinking back on that, it wasn't the DMV that I had to go to for that lapsed registration. It was the county tax office. So yeah, haven't been to a DMV in many years.

TX here too. My 16-yo just got his learner's permit and that can't be done online. Many locations don't have available appointments for months. Some, such as in SE Texas, have same day appointments. We ended up driving over an hour away to get a same-week appointment.

Months-long wait times are just obscene.

I don't know if this is possible for your use case in TX but my local DMV in OR has a months-long wait for a REAL ID appointment. Or, you can walk in and get it done in about 30 minutes most days. I guess they only have one or two people fully trained to process the applications but similar to getting into a doctor's office when you have an urgent need, they can usually squeeze you in even without an appointment.

CA dmv, practically everything can be done online and through the mail; people love to complain about the lines and how everything is slow but I sincerely don't know what they expect: even when I had to go to the office I always made an appointment, got called in within 10 minutes of arriving, handled whatever I needed to handle expeditiously, and was on my way, and had this same experience in various locations. None of this "I stood in line for a zillion hours, in the sun, snowing, both ways..." nonsense.

Lots of things can be done online in Indiana. Plate renewal is one of them.

Initial vehicle registration isn't if you didn't buy from a dealer and need a title.

One you are logged into the BMV site, they now have realtime chat that is prompt and helpful. When I do need to go in, I use that to make sure I have everything I need.

> vehicle registration is every second year

For those of us not in the US, can you explain what this means? And why it necessitates a physical visit to an office?

I have owned vehicles in the UK and Norway for fifty years and never had to visit such a place for the purpose of registering a vehicle. Even before it was done online all that was needed to register change of ownership was to send in the registration document. And we don't have to do it again. We have to pay an annual fee to the roads authority but that is now collected by the insurance company automatically in Norway so it cost money but not time or effort.

Like so many things, it varies by state. Where I live, the only reason I've had to physically go into the DMV in years, is to get a new license (they have to take a photo and capture a signature). Otherwise, it's just fill out a form online and they send me an updated registration in a week or so.

Is the tag tied the tag to the car there?

In most US states, the tag is registered to the owner and the car. I put old cars on/off the road and have 3-8 tags/yr come and go (+3 on daily drivers).

While the tag is in your possession, insurance must be kept active on that vehicle. If you pull a car off the road, you have to turn in the tag before canceling insurance.

Like lots of people, I've had my license auto-suspended for non-insurance. My company notified the state of renewal (old end+new begin) and state only recorded the old policy ending. I only found out because I routinely checked my license status online. Saved me a trip to jail and an impounded vehicle.

Its varies by state. In MO I can theoretically do it online, but I can't get through the ID verification step. I have to go to town to get my car inspected, so it's only an extra five or ten minutes to stop off at the License Office. If the experience was poor I'd work harder to get the online registration working, but it's so easy I don't see the point.

I have a similar experience in my state, but almost none of it is privatized. They made it so you can do most of what you need to online, like renewing your vehicle registration or driver's license. They also extricated all driver's license management from the DMV and put it under it's own Driver's License Division. When I have had to go in-person for either of these things, lines haven't been long and the staff have been very helpful.

Yep in Maryland we have "Tag & Title" places - they don't offer all the services of the MVA (our name for the DMV), but for what they do offer the fee is generally well worth it.

> our name for the DMV

...because of course "DMV" stands for "D.C., Maryland, Virginia" there :)

I kind of wish that the DMV was combined with an attached food court... I mean, that way you can come on your meal break, actually get something to eat while waiting etc.

Oklahoma has a similar system where you can register your vehicle or renew (not acquire) your license at a "tag agent", except they stopped calling them that a few years ago. I think the benefit of this arrangement is separation of concerns between normal citizens and the dregs of society. You see, in a state where you do all things at the state DMV office, normal functional people have to intermingle with alcoholics and ex-felons and other dysfunctional residents who are massively overrepresented. In Oklahoma only people in good standing are found at the tag agency, while felons and people trying to resolve their 37th DUI arrest are found only at the DMV. That makes it feel like a more efficient system, for the normal people.

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