Five more DMV offices will open an hour early, including two in the Triangle
The Division of Motor Vehicles is extending its hours at five more driver’s license offices starting next week, including two in the Triangle.
As of Monday, Aug. 28, the DMV offices in Clayton, Garner, Asheboro, Gastonia and Shelby will open at 7 a.m. instead of 8 a.m. They join 40 other DMV offices that already open at 7 a.m., including those in Carrboro, Cary, Wendell, north and west Raleigh and both offices in Durham.
All the offices close at 5 p.m.
The changes are the latest by the agency as it tries to ease crowding at its offices and better manage demand.
Starting in May, the DMV began seeing customers with appointments only in the mornings; after noon, customers see a DMV agent on a first-come, first-served basis. Walk-in customers are also welcome in the mornings, but people with appointments take priority.
DMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin said a growing number of customers asked for the ability to go to a driver’s license office without an appointment and noted that up to 25% of people who had made appointments weren’t showing up.
Also in May, the agency began posting current wait times at all 115 of its driver’s license offices statewide, to help walk-in customers to decide where and when to go.
In December, the DMV plans to deploy its first computer kiosks in stores and other public places that allow customers to do DMV business that doesn’t require an office visit, such as renew a license. The DMV finds that more than half of customers with transactions they could complete online are visiting an office anyway and hopes the convenience of a kiosk will encourage some of them to avoid a trip.
The expanded hours at five offices coincides with the end of Saturday hours at 16 driver’s license offices across the state. Summer is the DMV’s busiest season, as students and newcomers to the state seek their first North Carolina license. To help keep up, the agency has traditionally opened some offices on Saturday mornings, but this summer found so few customers at some of those offices that it sent workers home early.
