Wait times down to 18 minutes at MS driver’s license bureaus, Reeves says. Here’s why.
Mississippi’s Skip the Line program has cut wait times at Driver Service Bureaus from two hours to 18 minutes, Gov. Tate Reeves said in a press conference Tuesday.
The program, launched one year ago, allows Mississippi residents to avoid long wait times at Driver Service Bureaus by making appointments online at all locations.
“Not only is the wait time 18 minutes, but that’s 18 minutes from the time that they get there to the time that their services are completed when they make an appointment,” Sean Tindell, commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said during the press conference.
Reeves said the online appointment scheduling system has been used over 130,000 times at 35 drivers service bureau locations around the state.
To schedule an appointment, go to https://telegov.egov.com/dps/.
Anyone planning a trip to a Driver Service Bureau also can view live camera feeds of the lines at nine locations at https://www.driverservicebureau.dps.ms.gov/live-feeds/.
Mississippi House Bill 1371, authored by Rep. Charles Busby, R-Pascagoula, and passed last year, allowed the state to create the program as well as implement other improvements.
Some of the other changes are that now residents can change the address on their license at home, allowing them to skip a visit altogether, as well as being able to renew firearms with the fingerprints obtained from the original concealed carry permits.
Reeves said so far 94,000 drivers license addresses have been updated online.
Before the Skip the Line program, people were waiting hours and sometimes days to get licenses. Driver Service Bureaus had also seen an increase in the number of customers as well as wait times over the last few years.
“Lines would start building at five in the morning, and when the offices would open they would have a line wrapped around the building,” Tindell said.
In 2020, Drivers Service Bureaus were closed for eight weeks due to COVID-19, creating a rush when they finally opened up again last summer.
Reeves and Tindell hope to make future improvements to expand on the success of the Skip the Line program, including a mobile ID program that allows digital copies of licenses and COVID vaccination cards, as well as a centralized call center and license printing location.
This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 5:26 PM.
