OHIO — Several Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle deputy registrar locations reported an over five-hour wait on Wednesday, one day ahead of a deadline that could affect thousands of drivers.
Car owners who did not get their registrations renewed during the pandemic have until Thursday to update their registration. Those who do not get their car’s registration up to date could be ticketed starting Friday.
While some locations, especially those in more remote areas of the state, reported relatively minimal waits, deputy registrar locations clustered around Ohio’s major cities reported the longest wait times. Drivers and owners are able to check the expected wait time and can get in line virtually through the Ohio BMV webpage. .
According to the Ohio BMV website, the wait at the BMV location in Pataskala reached more than six hours Thursday afternoon.
“We know that there are about 330,000 people who took advantage of that extension over the past year who have yet to come in and renew and that’s on top of, you know, our nearly million customers a month. So you know it’s certainly going to be a busy couple of weeks at the BVM,” Charlie Norman, the registrar of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, told Spectrum News1 earlier this month.
In March 2020, Ohio issued a reprieve for car owners needing to renew their car’s registration in hopes of minimizing the spread of COVID-19.
Two weeks ago, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine ended a state of emergency order, essentially returning state operations to normal.
