Supplier snafu another failure of the RMV

Our Registry of Motor vehicles continues to operate in the breakdown lane, as demonstrated by these latest developments.

Whether internally or through missteps by outside vendors, the RMV can’t seem to get out of its own way.

Recently, a report by the Boston Globe disclosed that tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents will receive a new driver’s license or identification card due to a printing error.

IDEMIA, the company that prints IDS for the state, said it found an anomaly and would begin mailing replacement cards this week.

The original cards were not printed with a fraud-prevention feature, Jacquelyn Goddard, a MASSDOT spokesperson, told the paper.

She said more than 50,000 residents would receive new IDS.

Motorists issued a new license or ID card should destroy the old one, but no other actions are required, IDEMIA said. The printing issue will not affect anyone’s driving records.

The company said it notified the Registry of Motor Vehicles on May 25 that an issue with a single printer had resulted in 53,680 licenses and ID cards being misprinted.

“We discovered it,” said Christopher Doherty, an IDEMIA spokesperson, seemingly eager to take credit for the foul-up.

“It was a quality control thing.”

It was a just a little more than a year ago, in April 2021, when a hack of another RMV subcontractor created a massive inspection-sticker backup that lasted several days.

At the time, the RMV announced that Shrewsburybased Applus Technologies

Inc., the company that furnished the inspection software, had sustained a massive malware attack.

While we didn’t know the number of inconvenienced motorists affected by this statewide computer crash, according to Statista, a leading provider of market and consumer data, Massachusetts has more than 2 million registered vehicles on the road.

Divide that by 12, and you arrive at potentially 167,000 cars on average that must renew that sticker every month. And that doesn’t include all those other drivers who had skipped inspections over coronavirus concerns.

This downtime also cut into inspection providers’ profit margins, with no inspection revenue while still saddled with inspection-related expenses.

And do you remember those 2,100 Massachusetts drivers who received a notice in February to schedule a RMV road test due to bogus licenses granted through a Registry staff scam?

Of that number, 838 drivers didn’t bother to take the road test. Their licenses have been suspended and the RMV won’t be sending them any further notifications.

And of the 1,074 that did take the RMV road test, about 65% failed. That’s particularly disturbing, since those who failed had presumably been driving with lose fake licenses.

MASSDOT reported that 693 people failed the test, while 381 passed. That’s about double the failure rate over the past several years.

According to Masslive, of the nearly 200,000 road tests administered in Massachusetts last year, 60,000 received a failing grade.

According to data from the Registry of Motor Vehicles, the 31% fail rate is fairly standard.

In the past five years, the fail rate has ranged from 28.16% to 31.45%.

So, what’s the option for those who fail road tests?

According to mass.gov, after a failed road test, there’s a two-week waiting period before taking another test. Aspiring drivers can attempt no more than six road tests in a 12-month period.

And here’s a road-test Catch 22, courtesy of the RMV: If you have a road test scheduled, but would like to see if there’s another opportunity available sooner than your scheduled date, you must cancel your current road test first.

But if you cancel your road test and then change your mind — or can’t find an earlier appointment — the RMV cannot guarantee that your original time slot will be available.

Would you expect anything less from an agency driven to disappoint?