NCDOT responds to concerns of long DMV wait times
WASHINGTON, N.C. (WNCT)– Communities across the state are noticing longer lines and longer wait times at the local DMV with the Real I.D. implementation date fast approaching.
You will need a Real I.D. starting May 7, 2025 in order to fly or visit government facilities in the United States. NCDOT wants to stress the importance that this is not a deadline and getting a Real I.D. is completely optional.
You can still get your Real I.D. after May 7th. You do not need a Real I.D. to drive your vehicle but you will need to get it if you plan to fly without using a passport or other form of government identification.
DMV offices served a total of 185,000 transactions in the month of March alone. Of those, 82,000 were for a Real I.D. This is the most Real I.D. transactions in one month for the DMV in their recent past and they expect that number to grow as we move through both April and May.
As a result, 51 percent of licenses in the state are now Real I.D. When this initiative launched, the goal was to ideally have a number around 50 percent, so these results are a good sign for NCDOT and they expect that number to continue to rise as well.
Real I.D. customers aren't the only people at the DMV offices causing congestion.
'It's due to a variety of factors. Number one is the explosive population growth we've seen across the state over the last two decades,' DMV Communications Manager for NCDOT Marty Homan said. 'Teen drivers have to come into an office three times in a year-and-a-half timeframe and so, that's a lot of folks that are coming into the office,'
For the morning hours, the DMV only serves scheduled appointments, they then serve walk-ins in the afternoon. As of right now, if you try to schedule an appointment, the next available date could be as far as 90 days away.
Some people in the senior community have been seen waiting outside with lawn chairs due to the elongated wait times. The DMV also turns away walk-ins after they have reached a certain capacity of customers that they can service before closing time, forcing them to turn away any other people who are still waiting outside.
'I figured I could wait an hour and that would be no problem,' Earl Carney of Belhaven said. 'After about two-and-a-half hours, I finally reached the front door. Then, they said they had reached their capacity inside and they would no longer be accepting walk-ins for the rest of the day. One man I met said he drove 50 minutes just to get down here and try before ultimately not getting in. He said he was going to have to come back and try again the next day until he could get in.'
The NCDOT is already working on solutions. Ninety-two out of 115 DMV locations are currently operating with an extended hour each day to try and serve more people.
Starting May 31st, they will also be offering Saturday hours from 8 a.m. until noon for select locations including Greenville. This gives some people a chance to get in who may not be able to find time for the DMV during their average work week.
For any elderly or disabled seniors, they advise you to get in contact with someone at the front desk. As soon as you arrive, make your disability known so that they can help you with the process. The workers at the DMV office are unable to help you or prioritize you if they are unaware of this disability.
There is also a push in state legislation to approve more DMV employees to try and meet this demand. H.B. 199 requests for 24 additional employees at two new office locations and 61 additional employee positions to fill spaces that are currently vacant across the state.
This legislation was included in the Governor's budget but not in the Senate and has yet to be approved by the House.
For more information on how to schedule an appointment or for answers to frequently asked questions visit their website here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
California DMV warns of new vehicle registration support scam
Above: FOX 5 report on how to get a REAL ID in California. SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The California Department of Motor Vehicles is urging drivers to be wary of a new online scam offering assistance to renew vehicle registration at a discounted rate. DMV officials say the latest scam uses social media posts to advertise help that could save people up to 50% on vehicle registration renewal fees. Those who respond are asked to give their license plate, Vehicle Identification Number and the customer's full name, as well as to make a payment through an online platform like CashApp. System error may have affected traffic court notices in California. Are you impacted? According to the department, requests for these details or payments will never be made through unofficial channels. They further encourage drivers to only conduct business with the DMV or with an authorized business through the Business Partner Automation Program. A list of businesses that participate in this program can be found on the DMV's website. An example of what the advertisement looks like can be found below. 'The safest way to renew your vehicle registration is directly through the official DMV website,' DMV Director Steve Gordon said in a release earlier this month. 'We do not offer discounts, and we never conduct official business through social media or other unofficial channels.' To avoid falling victim to this scam and others that have been circulating in recent months, the DMV encourages Californians to take these precautions: Steer clear of offers offering discounted DMV services — the department does not offer special deals through unauthorized third-parties or on social media. Do not respond to unsolicited or suspicious texts. Verify the source if you are unsure whether something you come across is official or if you have concerns. Officials encourage Californians do this by contacting the department's customer service team at 800-777-0133. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
1 seriously injured in crash on I-85 South in northwest Charlotte: NCDOT
CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A major crash on Interstate 85 South near Brookshire Boulevard has left one person with life-threatening injuries, according to Medic. The person was rushed to Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center for emergency treatment. 🚗 Track issues along your commute with the QCN Traffic Interactive Map The crash happened around mile marker 36 in northwest Charlotte, just past Exit 36. As a result, three out of five southbound lanes are currently closed, causing heavy traffic delays. Officials with NCDOT said they expect the closed lanes to reopen around 4:10 p.m. Drivers should avoid the area or expect significant 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
As the ocean rises, NCDOT looks for a way to maintain ferry service to Ocracoke
N.C. 12, the highway that runs down the spine of the Outer Banks, is constantly at risk of being covered in water and sand because of erosion and sea-level rise. Those forces also threaten one of the state's ferry terminals. Ocean water has swallowed pavement and the septic drain field at the Hatteras Inlet car ferry terminal on Ocracoke, forcing the N.C. Department of Transportation to consider whether to fortify the docks or build new ones elsewhere on the island. NCDOT has come up with four options that it made public in May. Because of the dramatic loss of shoreline in front of the ferry terminal at the north end of Ocracoke, doing nothing is not one of them, said Jed Dixon, director of the NCDOT's Ferry Division. 'In one storm, we could lose all this if nothing's done,' Dixon said, gesturing toward an aerial photo of the terminal, known as South Dock. 'So we really need to start the planning now.' Ferries are lifelines for Ocracoke, an island community of fewer than 800 year-round residents whose population swells several times that size in the summer. NCDOT's vehicle ferries between Ocracoke and Hatteras carried 186,156 cars and trucks last year and 426,222 passengers. Two of the options for preserving that service involve expanding the ferry terminal in Ocracoke Village and landing the Hatteras ferries there. That would more than double the run time between Hatteras and Ocracoke to 2 1/2 hours and require NCDOT to buy more of the larger boats capable of operating in the open waters of Pamlico Sound. A third option would be a new ferry terminal at Devil Shoals, in an undeveloped area outside the village near the Ocracoke Campground. It also would require larger boats and a longer trip, and would come with unpopular environmental costs both in the water and on land. The final option is to overhaul South Dock, with new slips for larger boats and new 'stacking lanes,' where cars can wait to board. The old waiting area is no longer usable after large sections of pavement were washed away. The big challenge with maintaining South Dock is that more than a mile of N.C. 12 just south of the terminal is close to the surf and prone to flooding. In 2020, after Hurricane Dorian washed away the beach and left the road broken and buckled, NCDOT installed 2,500 sandbags to try to stabilize the protective dune. The bags just barely hold back the sea, says Dave Hallac, superintendent of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which stretches over 70 miles and includes most of Ocracoke. 'Even on a calm day, the waves are basically hitting the other sides of those sand bags,' Hallac told members of the N.C. Board of Transportation's ferry committee in December. 'And then when the surf kicks up, there's just nothing to stop it.' Because of rising ocean waters and subsiding land, scientists predict sea-level rise of 15 to 22 inches along the Outer Banks by 2050, according to the Fifth National Climate Assessment released in late 2023. That will make South Dock and other areas of N.C. 12 even more vulnerable, Hallac said. 'Challenges associated with erosion are going to become worse with sea-level rise, and you don't have to be an oceanographer to know that,' he said. 'With more water, we're going to have more erosion.' What to do at South Dock is just the latest challenge for NCDOT along N.C. 12. Four years ago, Dare County created the N.C. 12 Task Force to work with NCDOT, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Hyde County to develop a long-term plan to keep the highway open. The plan focused on seven 'hot spots' where the road is especially vulnerable, including the section on Ocracoke near South Dock. One of the hot spots has been fixed in a way that shows how difficult and expensive maintaining N.C. 12 can be. Two years ago, NCDOT bypassed the so-called S-curves north of Rodanthe by building a 2.4-mile bridge out over Pamlico Sound, at a cost of $154 million. It's hard to focus on one trouble spot without thinking about the others. At a public meeting about South Dock on Hatteras last month, charter boat captain Steve Coulter asked NCDOT officials about the section of highway between Frisco and Hatteras Village that became an inlet after Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and remains perilously narrow. 'All of this is moot if that doesn't get fixed,' said Coulter, who heads Dare County's Waterways Commission. 'That's the narrowest place on the damn island. The most susceptible spot on Highway 12 from Ocracoke to Oregon Inlet right now is right there.' The narrowest place on Ocracoke is just south of South Dock. Of the four choices presented by NCDOT, fortifying the existing ferry terminal would be the least expensive and disruptive to residents and visitors alike. But it can't be done without also fixing the road, says Natalie Kavanagh, another member of the Dare County Waterways Commission who attended the meeting. 'That is the one that makes the most sense,' Kavanagh said, nodding toward the NCDOT's South Dock plan. 'But we've got to get people safely from there to the village.' Ronnie Sawyer, NCDOT's deputy division engineer for the area that includes Dare and Hyde counties, said the N.C. 12 Task Force identified potential strategies for stabilizing that stretch of highway, ranging from more sand bags to moving or raising the road or building a bridge. The problem, Sawyer said: 'We don't have any money to go with our desires there.' In addition to public meetings on Hatteras and Ocracoke, NCDOT collected feedback on its four plans for South Dock online, where some patterns emerged from the mostly anonymous comments. For starters, few support moving the Hatteras car ferry to Silver Lake in Ocracoke Village. Many said that would both suffocate the community with cars and threaten the tourism business with fewer and longer boat trips. 'The Village couldn't handle traffic from all the runs, especially in season,' one person wrote. 'Moving the terminal and creating a 2+ hour trip will kill the economy and turn Ocracoke into another Portsmouth,' a reference to the abandoned town on a neighboring island. A new terminal at Devil Shoals enjoys a little more support, though usually as the best of four bad choices. Many oppose the dredging and loss of habitat that would be required to make it work and worry about marring a pristine part of the island. 'Please leave this area alone,' one person wrote. Reinforcing South Dock is the most popular choice, as long as it includes stabilizing N.C. 12. 'This is the only feasible option if Ocracoke is to survive,' someone wrote. But others are skeptical about trying to hold off the sea at the north end of the island. 'I know many prefer this, but it's not a long-term answer,' one person wrote. 'The erosion is only going to continue. Better to move it south and ensure access long term.' That's essentially what the N.C. 12 Task Force concluded in 2023. 'It was the consensus of the subcommittee that neither South Dock nor the roadway could be protected for many more years absent major engineering of the island,' it wrote in its final report. The group suggested moving the ferry dock closer to the village, south of the vulnerable stretch of highway, though it said more study was needed to find a location. NCDOT's options for landing Hatteras Inlet ferries on Ocracoke are all conceptual at this point, lacking both details and cost estimates. Once it decides later this year, the state still needs environmental permits and to find the money, which would be considerable if it must build a new fleet of larger boats. Dixon, the ferry division director, said the state could decide to work in steps, shoring up South Dock and the nearby section of N.C. 12 while it works on a longer-term solution. But there's a sense of urgency, as the waves continue to eat into the shoreline at South Dock. 'It's changed fast,' Dixon said. 'We just don't know where it stops. Is there some line where it's going to start gaining back at some point, or is it going to continue to lose? We don't know.' For more information about the South Dock study, including renderings of the four options, go to NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@
