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Last weekend, I stood on line for 5 hours, beginning at 7:45 in the morning. I even stopped some of the people who made it through on their way out: They said they got there at 6. When the line was finally closed, just before 1 that afternoon, there were still 20 people in front of me.
And nearly 200 people behind me.
Laura Basile
I am a single mother from Lyndhurst with a 10-year-old daughter. I work 7 days a week as an independent contractor for a company that does background checks. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid.
This week, I’ll have to tell the people who pay me that I need another entire day off again just to stand on line, with no guarantee that this time I’ll finally make it. In fact, trying to re-new my license so far has cost me about $100 that I don’t have. It’s going to expire soon.
This is really out of hand. I’ve never counted more than six people at a time working at what’s supposed to be a major Motor Vehicle destination in Lodi. With 9 percent unemployment, surely you can find some more bodies. In fact, hire ME for the day. I’ll get the lines moving.
People can re-register vehicles online, by mail and express. License renewal has one option: Wait on line for hours and hope.
NEWSBREAK: “This agency has lost its focus on customer service,” state Assemblywoman Connie Wagner of Bergen County said today. “That’s unacceptable, and it’s something we must all work together to resolve.
The Motor Vehicle Commission “disturbingly has no short-term solution for fixing its customer service problems and long waits,” Wagner said after a public hearing in Trenton on the issue. “It doesn’t even have a procedure in place for helping senior and disabled citizens and those who are sick who cannot wait three hours to renew their licenses.
“Meanwhile, the number of high-paid MVC employees has increased while agencies vital to the public have been closed.”
“With system upgrades at least a year away, the MVC needs a short-term emergency plan to handle its customer service problems,” Wagner said. “Simply telling motorists not to worry because the long lines might go away in a year is not an option.”
I’ve been to the office in Lodi twice, to Wallington twice and to Jersey City. Once I just kept driving past because the line was so long.
The first time in Lodi was an hour. I came back the very next night. After two hours, I was one of 60 or so people turned away.
A neighbor suggested Wallington. I got to finish work early because it was my birthday, so I hustled over. For nearly two hours, the line barely moved. Thirty of us groaned at once when they closed the doors at precisely 4:53 p.m. (even though they list 5:30 as closing).
That Saturday I got to the Wallington office at 7:45 a.m. There were 20 people in front of me. The line grew to nearly 200. At 12:50 – more than 5 hours after I got there – they closed the line. Had I made it inside, I STILL would have had another two hours to go.
People brought chairs. I did, too, for my daughter. It was sunny and hot. The only relief was Pizza Calabria next door. Every half hour or so, an old man would come out and sell bottles of water – for only a dollar. Think that’s a lot? Try ANYONE selling water on the street in New York City.
Then he began selling ices – for a dollar, too – followed by $2 pizza slices. When someone from Motor Vehicles said they were closing, he piped up: “But I’m still open.” Laugh of the day.
I spent most of my time talking with a South Hackensack guy who does contracting for the feds. He said his suspicion is that the delays are deliberate attempt by someone to show Trenton that privatizing is bad.
He finally got called after waiting 4½ hours, leaving me with a woman who was making her second try at getting a duplicate license for one she lost. She said the last time she was there, an employee came out and curtly remarked: “I’d go home if I were you.”
Another woman who had a child with her called relatives to pick up her daughter (she looked to be about 6-7 years old) because they’d been waiting more than four hours. If not for the pizza man, she’d have called them earlier, she told me.
That’s when I noticed a woman 40 or so people behind us. She looked familiar.
Then I remembered: Lodi.
She’d been on line in front of me the week before.
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