Is your Idaho driver’s license about to expire? Skip the lines and do it by mail

The Idaho Transportation Department is turning to mail-in driver’s license renewals in its latest effort to make up for long lines and delays caused by computer troubles.

The agency “will provide citizens with licenses that expire in November and December an option to renew driver’s licenses and identification cards by mail,” said a Thursday news release announcing the move.

The effort for now is limited only to licenses expiring in those two months. The state will send residents who qualify a form giving them the option to renew by mail, instead of going to a DMV office. Mail-in renewal forms also will be available at county offices that provide driver’s license services.

There are caveats: Commercial driver’s licenses cannot be renewed by mail. Anyone wanting a new license, Star Card or Real ID must still go to a DMV office.

The state will track the number of mail-in renewals and then, with input from the Idaho Sheriffs’ Association, decide if it will extend mail-in renewals past the end of the year.

ITD officials say they have been exploring ways to help county DMV offices after technological issues forced driver’s license offices to close statewide for nearly a week in August. The offices reopened in late August, but the system has still moved more slowly than it used to, and long lines of customers are still a problem.

The delays are only occurring with driver’s license transactions, and apparently involve how Idaho’s systems interact with those of a vendor. Vehicle registration and title transactions have not experienced long lines or delays; those DMV offices have stayed open, something county sheriffs have repeatedly pointed out.

“This system failure has at no time been the responsibility or fault of our county sheriffs and their staff,” Kieran Donahue, Canyon County sheriff and sheriffs’ association president, said in the news release. “The combination of vendor software failures and upgrades to other software have not been able to achieve what either the sheriffs or ITD would have expected for a system which supplies such vital service to the citizens of the state. We are hopeful the mail-in renewal process will help take some pressure off the system and our citizens while the state works on remedying the situation by exploring other long-term solutions.”