If you have to go, the best (and worst) times to hit D.C.s DMV offices

Ah, a trip to D.C.’s DMV — more fun that a trip to the dentist?

(Oh, I kid — my dentist is lovely and I appreciate the toothbrush and free floss!)

Friday is the annual oversight hearing from the D.C. DMV before the Council’s on Transportation. In advance of the meeting, DMV officials submitted a questionnaire detailing some of their accomplishments for 2013.

At 27-pages it’s a relatively brief summary, but there are some interesting tidbits tucked inside. (Early this week, we blogged about Maryland’s deadbeat drivers who owe more than $28 million in unpaid citations, which also was included in the DMV’s submission to the committee.)

Most useful and practical were these stats on when (and when not to) head to various DMV offices to take care of business. So here goes.

For all branches and the inspection station: Avoid the lunch hours between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Also, don’t go at the end of the month and the days before and after a holiday. As far as days of the week, Tuesdays appear to be particularly bad; Saturdays if you hit it right, you can be out of there in five minutes at some offices.

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If you are headed to the Penn Branch Service Center, you average wait is about 12 minutes. The longest average wait, according to DMV statistics, was 22 on Tuesdays between 1 and 3 p.m. Shortest wait, about eight minutes on Saturdays from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

If you are headed to the Southwest Service Center, average wait was about 35 minutes. The longest average wait was 63 minutes (gulp!)  on Tuesdays  from 1 to 3 p.m. Shortest average wait was 14 minutes on Saturdays from 8:15 to 10:15 a.m.

If the Rhode Island Service Center is where you need to be, it’s a 14 minute average wait. The longest average wait  is 33 minutes on Tuesdays between 1 and 3 p.m. (what IS it about Tuesdays?). The shortest average wait was 5 minutes on Saturdays from 8:15 to 10:15 a.m.

Finally, if it’s time to take your car in for inspection, it’s a 21-minute average wait. The longest  average wait was 64 minutes on, that’s right, Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m. The shortest average wait was 4 minutes (!) on Saturdays at 10 a.m.

One last tidbit: For those on the west end of town anxiously awaiting the opening (really in some ways a reopening) of the new service center at the Georgetown Park Mall, it is slated for April 29.

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