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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

HOT TOPICS:

▪ DMV Commissioner clarifies licensing delay

▪ Online driver’s license scam in Texas

▪ North Carolina DMV slow in issuing license plate stickers

Story on…

DMV Commissioner clarifies licensing delay

CT Post

DMV commissioner clarifies licensing delay

By Ken Dixon

Updated 1:05 am, Wednesday, July 22, 2015

With egg on his face, if not motor oil, Motor Vehicles Commissioner Andres Ayala Jr. has apologized for ordering driver-training schools to mislead their students on the source of a three month delay for driver’s license tests.

Republican critics said Tuesday they are concerned that Ayala’s office tried to persuade private businesses to lie for the Department of Motor Vehicles. They want to know how the agency plans to speed up the testing process, which has been bogged down by a glut of applications for driver-only licenses for undocumented immigrants. When the program was launched in December, DMV officials said as many as 200,000 immigrants were expected to apply for a license.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Tuesday that opening the licensure process to immigrants complicated the flow of business at the DMV, which is involved in a multi-year installation of a new computer system.

“There’s a reality that when you’re making licenses available to a whole bunch of people that you are going to have some difficulties in getting all of those people processed as quickly as you’d like,” Malloy said in an interview in Bridgeport. “I think they’re trying to find the right balance to take care of all groups of people.”

Ayala, the former state senator from Bridgeport who became the state’s first Hispanic DMV commissioner, had issued an e-mail directive on July 10 telling driving schools to say that the licenses for undocumented immigrants was not the cause of the three-month delays for road tests and learner’s permit tests, in a report first published in the Hartford Courant.

“We apologize for asking the driving schools to refrain from talking about this issue,” Ayala said in a follow-up email sent to the driving schools Monday. “At the time of the (first) e-mail, we had already taken steps to reallocate resources and re-balance the drive-only appointments slots.”

For 2015 there are 131,306 driving test slots allocated for citizens and 52,285 for undocumented immigrants, said Ayala, a Democratic gubernatorial appointee in his first year on the job.

House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, called the July 10 order a major mistake but stopped short of saying it was an attempt to cover up the problems in the immigrants’ license program.

“It’s like telling the driving schools to lie,” Klarides said. “It would have been much easier to say the truth and ‘we didn’t expect this volume.’ While the commissioner might be new to the job, he’s no novice.”

Amid Republican criticism, the General Assembly in 2013 approved the controversial granting of driver’s licenses as a means to persuade undocumented immigrants to obtain proper training and auto insurance. The driver-only license does not have the enhanced federal identification features.

“From my perspective, this isn’t about whether you support the program or not,” Klarides said. “It’s the law and it’s our job to make sure program’s working effectively, obviously. I understand there are challenges with being the head of anything, but with that program, they were in such a rush to pass it from day one. What I want to know at this point is what are they going to do now?”

Story on…

Online driver’s license

scam in Texas

WAOW

Online Drivers License Scam

Posted: Jul 21, 2015 7:15 PM EDT

With so many websites today, getting scammed is an easy and common occurrence. And Susannah Master was added to the list when she logged on to re-new her driver’s license.

“I had checked and they have deducted from my checking account, the money for the driver’s license. So I went by the DMV to see why I have not gotten it in six weeks. They told me I did not go through the Texas system,” Master said.

Like many people master’s Googled renew Texas driver’s license. And when many options popped across her screen she picked the first choice.

“Don’t fall for the first thing online. Make sure you read everything before you put your name on there and your address, your driver’s license number, your debit card number. They had all that and I didn’t get anything,” Master said

Sherman’s Sergeant Hampton says that scams happen more than you would think, and the first thing to do after being scammed is file a police report.

“If there not out of money then there is not a whole lot we can do. If they do get scammed out of money they can make a police report with us, but we do like to know about it, because these scams get recycled throughout the years,” Master said.

And master’s hope this is the end of this cycle.

“and I don’t want anyone else to get ripped off. You know you’re trusting, you believe in people and you think they are going to do what they said and you shouldn’t,” Master said.

And one scam was all it took for Master’s to lose faith in people.

Story on…

North Carolina DMV slow in issuing license plate stickers

Charlotte Observer (blog)

July 21, 2015

NC DMV slow in issuing license plate stickers

BY KAREN SULLIVAN

Hope you’re not in a huge hurry to get a 2016 sticker for your vehicle’s license plate.

An equipment failure has caused a slowdown at the N.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, and it’s taking longer to get renewals processed and to send out stickers.

But crews in Raleigh are working overtime to clear the backlog.

“We’re still a few days away from that,” said Marge Howell, a DMV spokesperson.

The problem: It’s called a remittance processor, only it’s not processing well at all. It’s been giving the DMV staff problems since July 2 and falling way short of its usual speed.

The 8-year-old processor handled about 7,500 pieces of mail a day, when at full speed. Renewals are also processed at DMV license plate offices and online.

The DMV is working on getting a second machine for about $2,875 to help pick up the pace for mail-in renewals, Howell said.

“It’s supposed to arrive early next week,” Howell said. “We’re very hopeful that once we get that one going, we should be able to clear out the backlog in two or three days.”

Drivers should not have to worry about getting a ticket once their payment has been processed. Even before a sticker goes out, a record of payment goes into the system.

The existing processor isn’t reliable, but they’ll keep it going as long as possible.

The machine matches payments to the vehicle registration renewal card.

“I think it’s limping along,” Howell said Tuesday.

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