Connecticut’s Department of Motor Vehicles has the fifth-longest average wait time in the country, according to DMV.com, a private company not affiliated with the government.
Connecticut’s wait times are better than West Virginia — which had the highest average in the country of more than an hour — as well as Nevada, Louisiana and California.
The website, which has conducted polls about privatizing some DMV services, hasn’t yet released detailed state-by-state wait times. It will release specifics for one state per day, which means its Connecticut data should be out next week.
Nationally, the average wait was 34 minutes, according to the study.
The study compiled data from an online survey on DMV.com over an eight-month period.
Bill Seymour, a spokesman for the Connecticut DMV, said he questions whether the methodology of the survey is reliable.
“Anyone can compile statistics, but how they analyze them and present them could be misleading,” Seymour said in an email.
He said the DMV believes its wait times are in line with many others states. The state’s average in 2013, by its own count, was just under 39 minutes.
Seymour said the agency has been working to reduce wait times by assigning appointment times to learner’s permit tests, showing current wait times on its website, allowing online registration renewals and using an information desk to make sure customers have proper documentation before they wait their turn, among other initiatives.
