COLUMBUS, Ohio — There is a new service to save you time at the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
It's the chore nobody looks forward to — but almost all of us have to do.
An expanding service will allow you to cut your wait time by getting in line, online.
It was a packed house Friday at the Alum Creek Bureau of Motor Vehicles office.
The news at the check-in counter was not good.
"Yeah the wait is over an hour long," said the front-desk attendant.
Compared to that, Amanda Heard felt fortunate.
"Not too long, about 46 minutes," Heard said. "Actually, last month, I had to spend like a couple hours, between next door and here. I'm like oh my God seriously."
She and many others there Friday got in line the way they always have: showing up, taking a number, taking a seat, and waiting.
She wasn't aware of the new option- that began in a pilot program in June: "Get in line, Online."
"Essentially, the idea is wake up in the morning — you know you've got to go to the BMV — you can go online to our website, bmv.ohio.gov, you'll see on a map all the locations that are closest to you, you'll see live wait times. You can choose a location, you check in, and at that point, you're virtually queued in to the line," said Ohio BMV Registrar Charles Norman.
You then have a four-hour window to show up and claim your place in line.
"The goal is just to give our customers an option," Norman said. "We know time is valuable. We want our customers to be able to spend it doing things that are important to them. I assume waiting in line at the BMV is not high on the list."
Norman says the pilot program has been a big success — cutting wait times by up to 60 percent.
"Get In Line, Online" was tested at BMV locations in Franklin, Hamilton and Cuyahoga counties.
Over the next six months, it will be expanded to the rest of the state.
For more information about the program, click here.