DMV’s Dash Pass system getting mixed reviews

Completed driver’s license paperwork in hand, Nancy GashoFromm emerged late Monday morning from the Henderson Department of Motor Vehicles office.

No one would have blamed her for letting out a victory yell, or collapsing in tears. Instead, she stepped past the line that snaked outside the office and part way around the building. Drivers attempting to find parking spaces were backed up all the way to American Pacific Drive.

It wasn’t a record level of traffic, just business as usual at the DMV these days.

After spending parts of two days waiting in line, GashoFromm finally had managed to renew her driver’s license.

“It’s a relief,” she said. “I dreaded this completely, and that’s why I started early.”

Southern Nevada DMV officials have been overwhelmed in recent weeks due to high volume, surging immigrant identification and licensing registrations and kinks in their technologically advanced “Dash Pass” system. Offices have been forced to turn away customers after some have waited hours in line.

As awful as spending parts of two days waiting in line for a simple driver’s license renewal is, GashoFromm’s experience isn’t unique. I’ve received no shortage of horror stories — along with a few positive remarks — on the state of affairs in the swamped Southern Nevada DMV offices. Call it the Great Wait, and people want it off their shoulders.

A resident since 1970, GashoFromm can’t remember the system ever being as crowded. Average wait times, officials admit, have exceeded three hours in recent weeks.

The sojourn began Friday, when she arrived at the DMV office and took her place in what she naively believed was the line that led directly to a department clerk. It turned out it was only the line that led to receiving a number for the waiting list. After more than one hour, a buzz went through the line. She was informed the DMV’s computer had malfunctioned and could no longer process customers. She would have to come back another day.

“I was here Friday when the computers went down,” she said. “That was a real drag. You’re standing in line all that time. I didn’t know about the texting thing.”

Ah, the texting thing. She meant the DMV’s Dash Pass system, which so far has received mixed reviews.

She returned early before 8 a.m. Monday and took her place in a line that stretched all the way around the building. It was there she learned about the Dash Pass call she could make to place her name and phone number in the system.

Although the process still took more than three hours, she managed to succeed where it was obvious many of her fellow citizens were going to fail.

A simple walk through the Henderson DMV office makes it obvious the building wasn’t designed for this customer load. There isn’t much room to maneuver, and the inside seating appears pretty limited.

It’s not much better elsewhere, as Irene Musser recently discovered during her two-day odyssey at two other DMV offices.

She reports waiting for 2½ hours at one office before being informed by a harried clerk she’d have to wait at least another 90 minutes.

She left, and a few weeks later went to another DMV office, where the wait time was a little more than one hour. Because her cellphone lacks text messaging, a call from the DMV was relayed to her husband at home. He then called her to complete the connection back at the DMV.

“Bizarro!” she said.

Call her an optimist, but GashoFromm appears to consider herself lucky.

“I was here this morning when the line was around the building,” she said. “When I got my text, I walked around a lot of people. I felt badly because I’d been here on Friday, and I knew what it felt like.”

At least she found out about how the new system operates. Now her driver’s license is renewed for four years.

That means she won’t have to set foot in a DMV office until 2019.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Follow him on Twitter @jlnevadasmith.