Drivers whose licenses and registrations were up for renewal during a multi-million dollar upgrade to the state Department of Motor Vehicles computer system were granted extensions until the project was completed, but the grace period to avoid late fees is now over.
Residents who failed to meet the deadline will now have to pay fines when renewing driver’s licenses, registrations or identification cards.
The renewal extension was granted amid the computer upgrades, which prompted DMV officers to close from Aug. 11 to Aug. 15. The new system in place allows residents to use the DMV web site for more transactions and avoid going into a DMV branch, including checking the DMV website for tax delinquencies, reports on overdue emissions tests or failure to have state-required vehicle insurance.
If you are delinquent on taxes, you might not need to go to the DMV. Towns and municipalities have been linked to DMV computer systems for real-time resolution in DMV computers. Once that is done, a customer can do the renewal from a home computer, smart phone or tablet.
Emissions test stations also have a direct link to DMV. Once the test is passed and completed, a customer can renew a registration online.
The new online services DMV offers are:
- Improved online registration renewal program.
- Online checks for items, such as unpaid property taxes, lack of insurance, delinquent parking violations, which can hold up a registration renewal and cause repeat trips to DMV.
- Reprints of registration certificates from home or other computers.
- Registration cancelations online.
- Online ordering of special plates, such as vanity plates.
- Online ordering of replacements for damaged plates.
- Electronic notification by providing customers with an option for DMV to contact them either by mail or e-mail.
- Streamline efficiency of technology in the agency to with services in branch offices.
