I live in North Carolina. Which means I have witnessed, firsthand, what happens when a government agency’s software infrastructure, staffing model, and appointment system all simultaneously declare, “not my problem.”

Let me walk you through what trying to get a license in NC has felt like this past year. It’s like trying to schedule a passport renewal in a ghost town, only the ghost town is fully booked, and also you forgot to bring your birth certificate and your soul.

The Backlog: As of early 2024, North Carolina’s DMV had a backlog of nearly 350,000 license applications. That number is not a typo. That is not a population statistic from a mid-sized city. That is the number of human beings who, at one point, were just hoping to be legally allowed to drive again.

How did we get there? A vendor glitch. The state outsourced its license printing to a company in California (because of course it did), and that facility decided to stop printing for 10 days. Which triggered a domino collapse. You know how sensitive bureaucracies are to interruption. Like a soufflé, if the soufflé was also legally required to operate heavy machinery.

While this was going on, DMV offices across the state were basically saying, “We’re doing the best we can,” while turning people away at the door and encouraging residents to “try again in a few weeks.”

My Experience:

I went to the DMV in 2025 with what I thought was a well-prepared folder. Paperwork, proof of address, blood of a virgin, the works. I even checked in with their new QR code system — QAnywhere — which is marketed as an innovation but feels more like a digital cattle call. I sat in my car, phone in hand, watching the clock tick by. After two hours, I went inside only to be told they had closed the walk-in window early because they were “at capacity.”

Capacity?

I watched five employees standing in a cluster discussing Bojangles.

They told me to come back another day. I drove home illegally. It’s fine.

And just to add insult to absurdity: state officials actually issued guidance telling pharmacies, bars, and clubs to accept expired North Carolina licenses as valid ID. This wasn’t a secret memo — it was a public statement. Like: “Yes, our DMV has collapsed under the weight of its own bureaucracy, but please pretend expired IDs are current until we get our act together.”

That’s not governance. That’s a collective shrug from the top down. Imagine having to announce to your own citizens and businesses that your systems are so broken, you need society at large to suspend disbelief for a few months.

The Disconnect:

This DMV disaster is a perfect example of how infrastructure collapses in slow motion while everyone keeps pretending it’s temporary.

Officials have claimed they’re fixing it. They’ve switched vendors (to one just across the NC-VA border). They’ve added walk-in options, more staff, and even pulled policy models from Arizona, which ranks in the top five for DMV efficiency. That sounds promising until you realize North Carolina is ranked 25th in customer satisfaction, and it shows.

There are still parts of the state where residents line up outside in the summer heat before sunrise, just to get a spot. People bring chairs, snacks, phone chargers — like it’s a camping trip, but the reward is a laminated rectangle.

Meanwhile, the DMV has the audacity to run press releases about its “technological improvements.” These include such radical upgrades as: “online wait time estimates” (that are frequently wrong), and “expanded walk-in hours” (that still fill up by 9:30am).

The Bigger Picture:

We talk about infrastructure like it’s roads and bridges. But this is infrastructure too. Civic functionality. Identification. The ability to legally operate a vehicle. Show up for a job. Rent a house. Vote. Navigate a society built on paperwork and validation. And when those systems start failing this hard, we don’t get chaos right away — we get exhaustion. Quiet, grinding, exhausting theft of time and autonomy.

People are supposed to be able to walk into a government office, do their civic duty, and walk out with what they need. Instead, they’re walking out with frustration and the creeping realization that this system no longer works unless you know someone or get extremely lucky.

So if you, too, are waiting six to eight weeks for a license that used to take ten days, or watching a line of 70-year-olds melting in the July heat because the digital check-in “glitched again,” just know: it’s not you.

It’s the system.

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Sources:
Carolina Public Press – DMV backlog over
WRAL – NC DMV seeks Arizona blueprint
WBTV – Real people, real waits