CT-DMV

I feel so lucky with our IL DMV. It's the next town over, about 7-miles away, and unless I go 10am or later on Saturday morning, it's rare to have to wait at all.

They've also been great with my bizarre-ass questions, like: "How do I plate this vehicle I bought out of state, with a title in the deceased person's name, but not signed?", or "I need to plate this vehicle in both SWMBO's & my name, but she lives in Mississippi and won't be up here this month?". Even more recently I walked in to renew my trailer plates, but left my registration paperwork on the table at home. I didn't know my plate#, but they looked it up & I was out the door in 5-minutes.

I've lived in 6 states now. Out of my limited sample, ct has the worst dmv. Sout Carolina the best.

My favorite CT DMV tidbit was the letter I got from them addressed to my ex-wife a few months after the divorce was finalized in '04.

We bought a car in CT when I was stationed there in '97 and promptly registered it in SD, my home of record. Since I was military I didn't have to pay some part of the sales or property taxes, so we didn't, and that was that.

Or so I thought. Turns out that CT figured since my wife wasn't military and her name was on the car she owed whatever tax it was. Further, since CT never got notification of the car being registered in SD (because no one tells the old state they left?) they figured she owed them for 7 years of property taxes.

I called the number to raise some grief and at about 30% wound up the nice person I was talking to assured me that I didn't owe anything, my ex-wife did, and asked me why I cared anyway, if we were divorced.

That was a good question, and after telling them so I wished them good luck finding her for the bill.

I've found that going during my lunch break usually is pretty quick.

MA recently put in an express lane - they check your paperwork when you walk in, and if you have your E36 M3 together, you get to go in the short line. They also have wait time clocks on their website for each branch.

Makes it soooooo much simpler, especially since I've registered something like 8 cars in the last 3 years so I have the process pretty down pat by now.

Denver DMV's have gotten much, much busier. With me rotating vehicles so often it got to be pretty bad.

Last time I showed up around 9:30am, which typically is a slow time for them. They were slammed. Told the ticket gal I couldn't wait, she recognized me as a frequent flyer and told me to come back in a hour or so and just come up to her window.

I did, she couldn't help me but sent me down to one of her co workers. Got lucky, otherwise I would've been there all day...

There's no good reason this stuff can't be done online.

Without an appointment you're looking at least a 2 hour wait at the San Diego DMV. That's also with using the disabilities/appointment line that bypasses the normal line that goes out the door and around the building. With an appointment it takes about 30 minutes.

A friend had to go there last week to register a new trailer (without appointment), took 4 hours

I've never met more rude, miserable people than those working at the Massachusetts RMV's.

AAA here in CA can do a lot of the stuff that the DMV does, I just go there. Closer to me, open Saturdays, shorter line, easier parking, people are more pleasant.

In Michigan we can now schedule appointments. and they call you up in front of the whole line. I have walked out 2x in the last month and half in 10 minute while it was packed.

I've been going to Bridgeport lately - the lines are long, but they seem to work through them quickly.

docwyte wrote: I've never met more rude, miserable people than those working at the Massachusetts RMV's.

This guy knows what he's talking about. Aside from the nice lady at the RMV on Martha's Vineyard I encountered 2 years ago when registering my Delica.

The only good thing is when you buy a car in Massachusetts from a dealer, you can make them do the "running" to the DMV for you.

Which I always did when I lived there, that was one of my requirements. You want me to buy this car? Great, you spend a day in line at the RMV for me. Of course it was nowhere near that long for the dealers, I suspect they got "special" treatment...