AAA Responds to Governor Malloy's Letter

 

AAA Northeast has enjoyed a long and productive partnership with Connecticut’s Department of Motor Vehicles which we hope will continue.  Today we have made the difficult decision that we can no longer effectively service the volume of DMV customers visiting our offices without negatively impacting services to our members.

Over the past five years, two material changes to the AAA –DMV program have created serious challenges to the delivery of DMV services in AAA Northeast’s offices in New Haven, Litchfield and Fairfield counties.

First, the requirement that licenses renewed by AAA be REAL ID compliant – a federally secure licensing requirement mandated by the Department of Homeland Security – has added as much as 50% to the time needed to complete the transactions.

In addition, the number of office transactions has nearly doubled and the number of non-member transactions has increased from 17% five years ago to almost 50% in 2016. The combination of these factors has created a situation that adversely affects the ability of AAA to deliver the high levels of service that our members have come to expect.

AAA Northeast has reached out to the DMV commissioner and explained that its core business of serving dues-paying members has been negatively impacted by the increased volume and complexity of the registry transactions.

AAA Northeast President & CEO Mark Shaw has offered to continue the program by limiting  transactions to AAA members only and adding additional services, such as registration renewals, for members.  “I am hopeful that the State will demonstrate a willingness to work with AAA on this matter,” said Shaw.  “After working so closely with the DMV for all these years, and completing well over a million registry transactions at no cost to the state, I remain optimistic that we will find a way to move forward that allows our longstanding partnership to continue.”

AAA Northeast serves nearly 600,000 members through a network of branch offices in Branford, Hamden, Fairfield, Norwalk, Waterbury, Danbury, Stamford and Milford, and offers DMV services six days a week at all eight of its offices free of charge to its members.

“Over the years, the program has become very popular with our members,” said Shaw, “and  I’m sure we can work together to find a solution that helps us meet the expectations of members while keeping  the lines at DMV offices from getting unbearably longer,” he added.

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Submitted by Ridgefield, CT

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