By Richard Stradling / Newsbreak
Thousands of people were able to avoid a trip to the Division of Motor Vehicles in the last two weeks as a result of a bill signed into law on Sept. 30, state officials said Monday.
The new law lets residents renew a driver’s license or state identification card two consecutive times online, as long as their credential is not a REAL ID. Since it took effect Oct. 7, that provision has reduced the number of people visiting DMV driver’s license offices statewide by more than 18,000, Gov. Josh Stein said Monday.
“That’s 18,000 people who otherwise would have had to go to a DMV office, adding to the length of the lines there,” Stein said.
Until now, someone with a standard North Carolina driver’s license had to renew in person at a DMV office at least every 16 years. The new law extends that to 24 years for people without a REAL ID. People with REAL IDs are still required by federal law to get a new photo every 16 years, which requires a trip to the office.
The DMV serves about 8,000 people each weekday at its 115 driver’s license offices statewide, said commissioner Paul Tine. Allowing people to renew a second consecutive time online is “like having an entire extra day available to us each and every week,” Tine said.
The new law, Senate Bill 245, also changes the rules for people who renewed their license online, then came into an office to get a REAL ID before that license expired. They are now able to renew that REAL ID online rather than come in to an office.
And in two weeks, the DMV will be ready to carry out a third provision of the law, which eliminates one of three visits teens must make to a driver’s license office to obtain a provisional license.
State law used to require teens under 18 going through the graduated licensing process to visit the DMV to receive a learner’s permit, then twice more for limited and full provisional licenses. Now teens will no longer need to make the last visit, which was primarily to present a log showing they had completed 12 hours of driving under various circumstances. The bill also eliminated the need to complete the 12-hour log.
Altogether, the DMV estimates the changes will allow up to 400,000 people to do business online that used to require a trip to an office. That’s nearly 20% of the number of people who visited a DMV driver’s license office last year, said spokesman Marty Homan.
“Moving those transactions online is huge,” Homan said. “The impact is going to be real.”
The expansion of online renewals is one of several steps the DMV and lawmakers are taking to try to reduce the long lines and wait times that have become common at North Carolina driver’s license offices.
Stein also signed a bill that authorized the DMV to hire 61 new license examiners for existing offices over the next two years and 24 more for new offices in Brunswick, Cabarrus, Sampson and Wake counties. Tine said the agency has streamlined its training program to get new hires into field offices within two weeks “so they serve the public while they continue to learn.”