This state will see easier driving license renewal processes implemented this fall. Renewing your driver’s license is often a task met with much resistance and dread from drivers. With long wait times and frustrating bureaucratic procedures, finding ways to streamline these processes and make them easier on both drivers and Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) employees is a necessity. By leveraging technology and simplifying verification requirements, drivers will hopefully not avoid renewal processes altogether, ensuring that all drivers on the road are carrying a valid license.
Streamlining renewal procedures at the DMV
The streamlining of renewal procedures at the DMV is an essential step toward reducing inefficiencies, improving customer satisfaction, and ensuring compliance with state regulations by making sure that drivers are not avoiding these necessary legal procedures due to inefficient renewal procedures. Renewing a driver’s license or vehicle registration is often associated with long wait times and significant paperwork, which is often difficult to make sense of. By modernizing these processes, it not only reduces the time spent at the DMV by drivers but also reduces administrative burdens and resources on government offices.
One solution to making more streamlined driving license renewal processes is to expand the online renewal systems. By allowing residents to do this renewal procedure online as opposed to being forced to take time off work and come in to do it in person, wait times can be reduced, and those who do need to visit the DMV for more serious problems can also get attended to faster. Automated kiosks at public locations like malls or libraries could also provide quick renewal options for basic services.
This state sees new driving license renewal procedures
To get with the times and listen to driver concerns, more states are tolerating this expansion of online renewal procedures. Online renewal systems have previously been met with resistance due to concerns over the ‘digital divide’ among consumers, safety concerns of the sharing of sensitive identification information, verification challenges, and budget constraints to set up these procedures.
Now, however, North California residents will see an expansion of these digital services thanks to the passing of North Carolina Senate Bill 245. The bill changes the frequency of remote (online) renewals, allowing a person to renew remotely a second consecutive time under certain circumstances. This effectively lengthens the period between mandatory in-person renewals from every 16 years to every 24 years for standard licenses.
You can renew remotely for a second consecutive time if the license being renewed is not REAL ID compliant or if you are converting a REAL ID compliant license to a non-REAL ID compliant license for the renewal. For REAL ID holders, you will still need to come in person to renew the ID. The law goes into effect this fall.
“It will also strengthen the state’s ability to protect against cyber threats,” said Gov. Josh Stein.
More changes are coming soon for driver’s licenses
Driver’s licenses have been receiving significantly more attention as of late, due to this year finally seeing the REAL ID verification go into place in May, earlier this year, but also due to the rise in digitalization of licenses. As a means to modernize identification systems as well as to streamline identification processes at federal facilities, more states are passing legislation that allows residents to carry a digital identification card.
Currently, the following states have an operating digital license program: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, and Utah. Soon, the state of Georgia will join those states with functioning digital license verification systems, thanks to the passing of new legislation that will allow authorities to start getting the ball rolling with seeing these digital IDs come online. From July 1, 2027, the state aims to allow all residents to carry a digital ID without their physical one, as the state intends to target this date as the deadline for all law enforcement officers to carry devices that are capable of reading these IDs.
