LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – Nearly 50 government desk workers shifted through paperwork Tuesday as they attended to the needs of patiently seated Nevada drivers, but as of this week, some customers are now eligible to skip the line and go online.
The Nevada Department of Transportation rolled out this week a new direct, online registration service called “Rapid Registration” which will allow residents to file their paperwork from their homes for car registration, according to a news release.
“Rapid Registration has been in the works for quite some time,” Tonya Laney, Nevada DMV Director, wrote. “But we are joyous to finally see this product come to fruition and released to our Las Vegas and Elko customers.”
The Sahara location is the only spot where Las Vegas-based customers can fulfill the last parts of the nearly completely online registration process.
“Customers will still need to make an appointment to pay for their plates and pick them up at the participating Elko and Sahara offices,” Laney wrote. “We are already working to build the second phase, which will include a fully automated system available to the entire state.”
The service is currently only available for customers who purchased a vehicle from an out-of-state dealership, private party, or a new resident who has not yet registered their vehicle in Nevada.
Standing inside the participating Sahara location Hailey Foster, a DMV spokesperson, pointed to the customer’s need for the service.
“We noticed many people come here for that,” Hailey Foster, DMV spokesperson, said. “We just wanted to really hit a metropolitan area and then a rural office, if you will, and just see how people react to it so far.”
Foster touted over 400 customers have made “MyDMV accounts” since the new service launched on Monday, citing it as a success.
“But when you do this Rapid Registration process, all you have to do is come in and you leave with your license plates, which is great,” she said. “We’ve tested Rapid Registration for probably weeks on end to months. It’s awesome to finally see it come to fruition.”
The push for more online-focused services comes following scrutiny from the Nevada Legislature which examined a shift in online deadline for the state department and a change to the Henderson DMV location.
Following major cyber-attacks in Las Vegas 8 News Now asked a DMV official if the safety and security of residents’ private information was considered with more programs being moved online.
DMV officials noted the size of the state’s technician team describing it as made up of private vendors and in-house staff which amounted to over a hundred technical employees.
“The DMV of the future is online,” Foster said. “We’re really just here to help you guys save time and effort in the comfort of your own home to do your business online.”
