It's not that Registry workers don't love the public, it's just that people seem to use vacation week as a time to do their Registry business and, well, with memories of last month's long lines still fresh in mind, the RMV would just rather you do your business the following week if you can. Read more.
Wasn't it great when they installed that new computer system and everything just sped up? Wait, what? Oh. Around 12:50 p.m. Tommy Von got in line to get a ticket to get in line to get to a counter at the Watertown RMV.
First day back at the RMV after a major system change and it was all: Hey, there goes Elvis! Yo, King!
WBUR explains why the Registry is shutting down through Monday (if everything goes well); has to do with new federal requirements for state IDs used to get into federal facilities or to get on an airplane.
Four former employees at the Haymarket RMV branch and an accomplice are agreeing to plead guilty to charges they worked with two other people to issue licenses to people they knew were using fake papers, the US Attorney's office reports. Read more.
Some people who went to get their cars inspected today report they couldn't because of problems with a new state inspection system.
MassDOT says it's no biggie, that there were only scattered problems due to the service stations' lack of training, but one increasingly frustrated motorist begs to differ. Read more.
Despite sign, Roslindale RMV was not ready to go today.
Printers stopped working at "multiple" RMV branches today, including the one in Roslindale, where Jeff Durham, who needed to swap plates on a car, waited from 3:20 p.m. until he and other frustrated motorists were ushered out at 5:10 p.m.
Very unfortunate being asked to leave without service. @MassGovernor shame on you!
The Registry reports the snafu has been fixed.
A couple weeks ago, Jon Thompson was in line waiting to get his license renewed at an RMV branch when he wondered if he could use a wait-time data feed posted by MassDOT to show how long you might have to wait.
Massachusetts RMV Wait Times lets you pick an RMV location and time and shows you your estimated wait time, based on the data from that feed. Read more.
The RMV agreed to let a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster wear a colander on her head to get her driver's license - after she had her lawyer at the American Humanist Association explain the First Amendment to them.
Pastafarians, of course, believe "the existence of a Flying Spaghetti Monster to be just as probable as the existence of the Christian God" and part of that credo is paying homage through collanders worn on the head. Read more.
The New England Center for Investigative Reporting reports on the driving-test pay-for-play system at the Registry: Auto schools pay for guaranteed time slots for tests, and their students get in ahead of people who somehow managed to get the same time for tests.
Over the weekend, the RMV shut its Chinatown branch and opened a new one in the building above the Haymarket T stop.
As always, the Roslindale RMV provides ample space for standing outside while you wait for your number to be called inside.
The RMV announced today that its replacement for the Chinatown branch opens Sept. 15 in that parking garage/office building atop the Haymarket T stop that will also house the Boston Public Market.
The RMV will occupy the building's second and third floors. In addition to standard RMV functions, visitors will also get to enjoy a new E-ZPass customer center.
The RMV will open the office on Sept. 10 for a public sneak peak and for this year's auction of low-number license plates - which will include "351" - a number the registry notes is significant in Massachusetts.
MassDOT announced today it's increasing the cost of car registration from $50 to $60 and the cost of annual inspections from $29 to $35.
The transportation agency says the money will help it close a gap in the RMV's budget. $1 of the inspection increase will go to the service stations that perform the tests:
MassDOT will host public hearings on the fee increases this spring. The new fees will go into effect July 1, 2014.
The fee increases are expected to bring in $55 million to $60 million a year.
Adrianna Ferreira of Brighton had a pretty sweet deal, prosecutors say: She'd take money from immigrants seeking help with Immigration or driver's licenses and when they complained when she did nothing for the money, would either threaten them with deportation or actually turn them into ICE.
Ferreira, 48, a worker at the Watertown RMV, was arraigned today on 27-count indictment after a three-year investigation by the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, State Police and Homeland Security.
A federal appeals court said today a state contract with a Globe subsidiary to include ads in car-registration renewal notices a few years back did not violate a federal law aimed at protecting the privacy of drivers' personal information.
The ads included with the registration notice for his 1998 Toyota so offended Matthew Downing that he found a lawyer to file a class-action lawsuit against Globe Direct. Downing charged that by including the ads, which he never asked for, the company had violated his privacy rights under the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act.
The Globe reports the RMV is moving to suspend the licenses of immigrants who flew to Arizona to get driver's licenses because that state lets applicants take an interpreter with them into the written test, while we don't.
Crime Boston has details of an 18-year-old indicted in federal court on charges he sold crack cocaine and heroin - which he allegedly stored in bags clenched in his buttocks - in the men's room at the Chinatown Registry of Motor Vehicles.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today some evidence against a man charged with driving down I-93 while drunk and with a cracked windshield can't be used against him because he was initially pulled over for having black tape over "Spirit of America" on his license plate.
The trooper did not have any basis to stop the defendant; therefore the stop was improper and the evidence obtained as a result of that stop must be suppressed.
Got my car inspected earlier today. As it is model year 1999, I was only expecting the safety check. Therefore, in reading the inspection report, I was suprised to learn they had also done an emissions check as well (BTW, the car passed both safety and emissions fine)
Just checked out the MassRMV "Vehicle Check" inspections page and come to find out that, sure enough, the old "safety every year, emissions every other year" inspection system has been eliminated. So both safety and emissions checks are now required at every inspection cycle.
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