New website aims to help people beat DMV wait times

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A Charlotte man has a new website aimed at helping people beat the wait at DMVs.

It’s a problem many people are familiar with.

“I think we were 60th in line at 5 a.m. on a Saturday and the people that were at the front of the line had actually camped out starting Friday night,” said Maggie Jenson, who lives in Charlotte.

Brian Anderson from Harrisburg says he made an appointment months in advance, then had to wait about an hour and a half when he arrived.

With more than 200 people moving to North Carolina every day, the DMV acknowledges that wait times need to be reduced.

A Charlotte man saw an opportunity.

He wants to remain anonymous due to a conflict with his full-time job, but in his free time, he created ncdmvappointments.com.

“What our system does is it scans the DMV website at all times,” the man said. “As soon as it identifies an open appointment, it will basically go send an alert for people who qualify for that given appointment.”

It doesn’t book the appointment or skip the line, but for $5, the site sends an email alert when something opens up.

“We have about 500 paying customers already using the service,” the man said. “Every day, we hear stories about how quickly they were able to get in. We’re just trying to help them get a miserable service done.”

Maggie Jenson likes the idea.

“We can’t spend our whole days refreshing the page to see if there’s an appointment, so I think a service like that would be so helpful,” she said.

A DMV spokesperson told Queen City News they didn’t immediately have a comment on the website.

Online appointments can be booked 90 days out. New appointments drop at midnight but are booked quickly.

Walk-ins are accepted until the max capacity is reached.

MORE | Charlotte has four of the worst DMVs in the U.S., according to Google reviews

On Wednesday, state legislators passed a “mini budget” that includes funding for dozens of new driver license examiner positions.

DMV Commissioner Paul Tine said in a statement, “I’m encouraged by the General Assembly’s investment in the NC Division of Motor Vehicles.  We have a long way to go to reduce wait times and better serve the public.  These provisions will help us move in the right direction towards these goals.  Our team is ready to get to work to improve the DMV experience for all North Carolinians.” 

The website owner says, “Something like this is a challenging problem to figure out and I think the state is doing all the right things to get us in the right direction, but it’s ultimately the government trying to create technology which everyone knows takes a long time.”

He says he’s now considering expanding the service to include other government appointments, like Global Entry or visa and passport services.