The temperature was a brisk 52 degrees and lines were wrapped around the Baker’s Basin Motorvehicle Commission in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. People were tired, but there was a seemingly positive overall morale. At 8:30 a.m.
Three boys were standing in line, who appeared to be having a great time standing in this line — at least by comparison to everyone else. Standing in the middle was Adam, a tall man in his early 60s. He was there to finally register a car on which the registration lapsed over a year ago.
“We considered selling it,” he said.
The two other men in this MVC line trio, while they will remain unnamed, were happy to chime in about their own MVC nightmare scenarios, as well as those of their friends.
One man said, “Google said the lines here were shorter.” His wife had waited in line in Hazlet, NJ, all day a few weeks prior, only to be sent home without service. After that experience, they weren’t going to make that mistake again.
As I surveyed the line, we joked around about different aspects of DMV and whether this wait was worse than driving around illegally. Another person in the line yelled out, “Sell the whole damn government to Walmart,” which received quite a few laughs.
The government did not actually think this was such a bad idea at one point in time. In 1995 the state did, in fact, privatize what was then called the DMV, or Department of Motor Vehicles. However, in 2002, a state legislative report said that the privatization resulted in poor and inconsistent service as well as “poorly paid employees who have received inadequate benefits, resulting in a high turnover rate at DMV agencies.” The DMV was returned to NJ state control in 2003.
After having lunch, I returned to the parking lot to do some exit polling. After being brushed off a couple times with “Sorry, in a rush” and “Have a good one, buddy,” I was just about ready to call it quits. Then I encountered a familiar face: Adam, from earlier in the day. He recognized me and waved his registration papers over his head, signaling the day’s success.
Five hours in line and he had emerged triumphant and “ready to mount a victory parade down Route 206,” he said.
I asked him how his comrades in line fared, but the news was dismal. One man, who Adam referred to as his new best friend, finally got into the building where he said “The scary lady at the window [told] him there was a mistake in his paperwork and [that] he’ll need to come back.”
Check out the NJMVC website, www.state.nj.us/mvc/ FAQ page information about extensions, changes to the law about online renewals, and much more, as well as some of the rules around why you may be having issues performing MVC tasks through the website. There is a lot of information that might very well save you a trip to the MVC and hours of waiting in line.
If, after all else, you must go in person, be sure to arrive prepared with all the correct paperwork, IDs, pins, activated credit cards, a checkbook in case of bad card reads, and whatever else you can think of. The more prepared you are before leaving for the MVC, the less of a chance you’ll have of needing to return another day.
