Five-Hour Wait Times At Warren DMV

The word on the street is that if Dante were able and willing to issue an updated version of his 14^th century epic Divine Comedy, he would have to add a tenth circle of suffering to his Inferno: the Warren branch of the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles.

Ever since the Middletown branch closed last month, horror stories have emerged from Warren about wait times upwards of five hours for residents seeking to register vehicles. While not on par with what, say, the Libyan government is currently doing to its people, we have come to expect a higher standard of service from our government than “not Libya.”

The situation in Warren was recently brought to my attention by Mike Byrnes, a Bristol native who knows how to run a railroad, as the saying goes. According to Mike,

“…there were almost 70 people in line, and the average wait for registration was 4.5 - 5.5 hours.  I got there at 10:20am and left at 4pm. Licenses took about 30 minutes and there were never more than 10 people in that line.

There was very little seating and with no tickets most people stayed in line and stood.  I was behind two women in their seventies. I made them go sit and I held their place for them.  There was no food and the toilets were nasty.

There was a big sign on the wall that said the maximum capacity of the room was 48 people by order of the Fire Marshall and of course there were upwards of 60 all day…”

Wow.

But before we rush to remodel Hell to add a tenth Circle of Suffering, we should check to see if the Warren DMV could fit nicely into one of the existing circles. The first is Limbo. This is too easy. As Mike witnessed, they are not serving as many as 70 tortured souls at any given time.

Lust, gluttony and greed probably have no place in our scenario, but I imagine that there is no shortage of wrath and sullenness – the fifth circle of suffering – by the time you make it into the fifth hour of standing in line waiting to be taxed by the state you work to support.

Likewise, heresy and violence are questionable, but fraud, the offense that will earn you a spot in the eighth circle of suffering? Defined as deceit, trickery, or breach of confidence, Dante gets very specific when it comes to the punishment for acts of fraud by corrupt politicians: an eternal bath in a lake of boiling oil.

By Dante’s standard, there are an awful lot of Rhode Islanders whose afterlife will look a lot like happy hour at the Melting Pot – that fondue joint ironically located in the shadow of the State House. And I suspect that’s something that will be A-O-K with would-be registrants exit-polled on their way out of the Warren DMV.

One local politician who I expect will be spared the lake of boiling oil is Dan Reilly, a young political newcomer who represents District 72 (much of Aquidneck Island) in the General Assembly. Reilly has introduced a bill to allow local municipalities to take over certain DMV duties such as license renewal. While there are some sticking points in his plan and what Rhode Island really needs to do is join the legion of states that allow for online license renewal and other services, Reilly should be commended for sponsoring common-sense legislation that addresses a real problem.

It is not, however, a problem for members of the General Assembly, as State House staff handles DMV business for our senators and representatives. As a courtesy.

I attempted to contact the DMV to see how long they mean to let the situation in Warren stand. That was 30 minutes of my life I won’t get back – and I never did reach a real person. The DMV doesn’t even have its own public information officer, which could be either because they could not care less about what we think or because there’s not a human alive with thick enough skin to serve effectively in that capacity.

Next, I attempted to contact Mike Trainor, the press contact at Governor Chaffee’s office. I just wanted to know what they were doing to rectify the problem, when they expect to address it, and if there was another branch to which they would recommend we take our registration business in the meantime. I made that call over a week ago, but just like the other virtuous pagans – I mean, constituents – at the DMV, I remain in Limbo.