Understanding the Real ID Renewal Process
Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers:
A Question About Online Real ID Renewals
In recent weeks, I received both an email and a postcard from the DMV reminding me that my North Carolina driver’s license is going to expire this summer and inviting me to apply online to have it renewed. This sounded like a fabulous idea, since going to the DMV in person under any circumstances can be a trial, and since, when I checked, I found that no local DMV was offering an appointment at all (Only three in the entire state, none of them within 200 miles). So, I tried the online route, only to find, once engaged, that I could not renew my Real ID that way. Since we travel fairly frequently by air, this was a non-starter. So I now face a day sitting in the DMV waiting room. My question, good sir, is, precisely why can’t a Real ID be renewed online? I appeared in person at the DMV when I got my previous Real ID driver’s license. I’m still me, still have my passport, original Social Security Card (over 60 years old), and can submit copies of those documents and of recent utility bills to prove residence with my online application. The U.S. State Department will, ironically, now allow passport renewals online. If that document — one of the foundations of Real ID — can be renewed online, it really is strange that a North Carolina driver’s license cannot.
A Smart-Aleck Response
I truly believe that the phrase “good sir” is not used enough in our society. It would help defuse a lot of heated situations, along with the use of some other saucy British words. For instance, say you’re in an argument over a parking space, you could just say, “You, good sir, are a numpy twit! Now, good riddance to you and your ilk.” Problem solved.
The Real Answer
Division of Motor Vehicles spokesperson Marty Homan said this gentleman should be able to renew online. He also had some encouraging news about upgrades to the once-dreaded license renewal process.
“If you have a restriction on your card — certain medical restrictions — you might need to come in person,” Homan said. “But you can renew online every other time, just like you can a regular driver license or ID.”
Improvements Through Legislation
It does get a little more complicated, though in a good way, thanks to Senate Bill 245, which Gov. Josh Stein signed into law last September. A DMV press release notes that as of last Sept. 380, “North Carolinians with a non-Real ID state ID card can renew online two times in a row.
“A Real ID state ID card can be renewed online a second time in a row if the customer has had an in-person transaction since their last renewal,” the release stated. “For many people, that in-person transaction was to get a Real ID, but it could also have been for a name change, or an in-person address change or duplicate for a lost ID.”
The upshot for my reader, Homan said, is that he should be able to renew online. But he said the reader may be encountering “a special circumstance.”
“Maybe he’s encountering a different problem, or maybe he was clicking the wrong button on the renewal site,” Homan said. “There are a variety of things that could be going wrong, but our larger message is this person should be able to renew a Real ID online, especially if they’ve appeared in person since their last renewal.”
Homan was going to reach out to the reader personally.
He also had some good news for those of us who’ve been frustrated with trying to get a Real ID in the past.
Changes to the Appointment System
I’m among them, because I procrastinated like a fool and then panicked a year ago in January when my license renewal came up. I only had a week left before expiration, and I couldn’t get a Real ID appointment, so I just renewed my regular license.
But then this year the feds finally cracked down on Real ID requirements to fly, including a surcharge if you don’t have one, so I decided to suck it up and get ‘er done.
No appointments were available, except in Burnsville, so I drove an hour to knock it out. Piece of cake once I got there with the right documents.
But I’ve heard from a lot of frustrated people who say they can’t get an appointment on the DMV site. That is true, but Homan had some good news in this department.
Just do a walk-in. But first, let’s talk about those appointments.
“Our appointments are very popular, and they go quickly,” Homan said, noting the DMV has made some changes to the scheduling process. “We used to schedule 90 days out. We now schedule just seven days out.”
Previously, new appointments came available at midnight each weekday, but they’re now made available at 8 p.m. “because that is a much more reasonable time for folks to be able to look,” Homan said.
“If you happen to be looking at 2 p.m. or 9 a.m. even, they’re probably gone already,” Homan said.
“But one thing we want to make sure people know is that you don’t have to have one,” Homan said. “Nearly 90 percent of the people we serve, we serve without an appointment, just as a walk-in.”
Improvements to the DMV Experience
You read that right — 90 percent are served as walk-ins.
Now, I’ve written before several times about DMV dysfunction, ridiculously long lines and people getting to the offices hours before they open.
Homan says they’ve “made a lot of improvements,” including the check-in process.
“We now work the line as soon as we open, and work that line down,” Homan said. “So we shouldn’t be seeing just lines of people queuing up outside of an office all day long like you could have in years past.”
They check everyone in, get a cell number and then text you a link where you can watch your place in line virtually.
“They can then wait from anywhere, and we’ll text them again when they can come back to the office to be served,” Homan said. “So that whole process is a lot better than the previous queue with a board out front that you had to scan. That didn’t work very well for a variety of reasons. This new process is much better.”
Another change is that they check people in until they hit their capacity number for the day.
“Previously, you could potentially be in line until 4:30, until they’re like, ‘All right, half hour (left), we’re not going to get to all of you. Go home,’” Homan said. “Now, when we hit the number that we think we can hit that day, we just stop checking people, and we put a sign out front that says we’re full for the day. That’s much better than letting somebody get in line in the morning and then waiting until 4:30 to tell them we’re not going to get to them.”
Homan said it’s best just to drop in and not call ahead of time, as calls are now routed to a call center and not directly to the local office. Also, you don’t need to get there hours before DMV offices open at 8 a.m., as people were doing.
“There’s no need to get in line at five, so hopefully nobody’s doing that,” Homan said. “If you get there around opening, we check everybody in as fast as we can.”
A lot of locations across the state have seen lulls in the afternoon after the morning rush settles down, so you may want to consider that time frame.
That aforementioned Senate Bill also moved about 8,000 transactions a week from in-person to online. That comes out to 400,000 or so a year.
“So we’ve seen the wait times drop significantly across the state, from last spring at north of a two and a half hour average to about 45 minutes right now,” Homan said.
Another plus for DMV users is more employees on board.
“There was a bill that passed in August, the mini-budget House Bill 125, that gave us more employees, finally,” Homan said. “So we got 64 more employees that we hired, all within a month, and they’ve all been deployed throughout the state.”
The DMV has also been able to add some offices.
“We’ve opened two of the four new offices that were funded in that,” Homan said. “So that, with the Senate Bill 245 and online renewals, has really helped. We’ve still got a long way to go, but it is definitely getting better, and I’m hopeful that people can see that.”
If they don’t, I’m sure they’ll hear about it!
