MVA - White Oak — Local services in White Oak

TL;DR: MVA, your organization is broke; it's staffed by incompetent and unhelpful employees, and managed by ineffective supervisors. Here's a few things you can do to fix it:

-Update your website with the correct processes and required documents for every driving-related action your organization handles.

-Incorporate modern technology better to handle actions that don't require face-to-face contact.

-Train your employees on the correct processes, basic customer service, and communications skills. Hire supervisors who are committed to excellent customer service and give them the power to enforce it.

-Redesign the queue process at your local branches with the intent of serving people in the least amount of time possible, while making it so most of them leave having accomplished what they were there for.

The White Oak MVA branch is appallingly disorganized; staffed with incredibly incompetent and rude workers; and led by spineless, ineffectual supervisors.

First, the MVA's employees that I dealt with have no clue about their own processes, yet feel compelled to treat me like an idiot for not understand the process or doing something wrong. I went to the White Oak branch to check to see if they received the title for my car my lien holder faxed to them. After the front desk worker was done loudly berating a Hispanic woman for not having the required documents, and she left, frustrated, because she couldn't understand what he was saying since she didn't speak English well; he called me up. He gave me a supervisor number and told me to wait in line. I asked if he could just check to see if it's there before sending me to wait in line, with the intention that it's a waste of my time and theirs for me to wait in line for over an hour just to find out the title isn't even there. He gave me a look like I had just asked him to cure cancer, scale Mount Everest one-handed, or some other seemingly impossible request and repeated his instruction to wait in line, without any further explanation. I then asked two other employees if they could check to see if my title was there, and they both cut me off in mid-sentence, repeated the instruction to wait for a supervisor, and dismissed me.

After waiting in line for about an hour and a half, I finally get called up to speak to a supervisor and ask him if they've received my title. He checks the "database," which is actually a box in which the MVA employees haphazardly throw incoming faxes into. After spending a few minutes rifling through the papers in the box, he locates my title, but not the promissory note, which is "shocking" considering the complete lack of organization of their faxes. He then informs me that he can't register my car without the promissory note and tells me to have a nice day. I ask him to explain why, and he tells me that I don't need to understand why. I insist on an explanation, and he patronizingly explains that I can't register my car without the lien holder's consent, which is provided by the promissory note. I point out this is contrary to the instructions for the lien holder, which doesn't say anything about providing consent to register my car. It only says to fax a copy of the title and a promissory note saying when the lien holder will send the original and how they will send it. I add that the act of faxing my title to the MVA implies consent to register my vehicle. After much hemming and hawing, he finally gives me a line about how it's the law and he can't do anything.

I then address the rude treatment I received from his employees, and his response basically boiled down to the following: some of his employees don't know how to do their job and take it out on the customers, the MVA's customer service is no worse than what you'd receive from a private company like Verizon and Comcast, and customers are going to complain about...

I had a great experience from here. I moved to MD from TX and went to this MVA to register my car to MD. Well... to be honest, as usual, I was not excited to go to MVA(or DMV in TX) expecting spend whole day there waiting. Anyway, I went to the one in Georgia Ave. around 8am in the morning but a very kind lady (I didnt catch her name, sadly) who works there said their office is only for the customers who need to RENEW their registration and kindly re-directed me to White Oak one which takes care of new comers of MD. So I got to White Oak around 8:45am and it was already full of ppl. There was a person who greets and sends customers to the right section by their needs. I waited on line for about 8-10min and very kind gentle man (I didnt get his name either but he is white, ex-airforce man) gave me all the info that I need to know and sent me to the license section. I’ve got license part done less than 20min include waiting time. Wow. It went so smooth and fast. Then they sent me to the left which is registration department and I waited about only 5min. But when I was called by the person at the desk, I realized that I didnt bring enough documents that I can utilize to prove my residence. Then the lady (I believe her name is Camile or Camila...? She is black and has medium short hair) suggested me to go back home and bring whatever documents that could be helpful and she said she will revive my number when I get back there so that I dont need to wait too long. How gracious she is!!! I drove back home and went back there in like 30min, waited about 5min then she retrived my number and got my registration done in 10min. OMG. It was the best MVA experience that I ever had! Wow! I was so thankful to ppl who helped me there that day and not wasted whole day. I really appreciated them. I wish I would have another great experience for the next...

I took my driving test here today and passed on the first try!

My examiner was Tammy, and she was super nice and patient. I'm an anxious driver and she really put me at ease! Her instructions were clear and easy to understand and she encouraged me to take my time and not do anything I wasn't comfortable with. (eg. turning right on red or rushing to make a left turn when there's oncoming traffic. Apparently a lot of students try to show off in these moments and end up doing something that causes them to fail. Better safe than sorry!) In between certain instructions and maneuvers, we even had room for a little chit chat and joking around :) Overall, a very pleasant experience.

I didn't score perfectly, but she recognized that I had enough skill to not mow people down in the road lol and she gave me some tips on things to work on. Very fair examiner.

Also shoutout to the reviewer who recommended looking up the test route on YouTube! That was very helpful. At the time of posting this, the most recent one was uploaded just 2 weeks ago and it was exactly the same route today.

The blonde woman at the check in counter was super nice, as many others in the reviews mentioned. And after passing the test, the next step of going in to take my license photo took like 5 minutes. Very quick.

The worst part of the whole day, and the reason for 4 stars instead of 5, was the like 30-40 minute wait where everyone first lines up to do the pre-entry check before starting the parking portion of the test. They definitely need more examiners to make that a little smoother...