Outage disrupts state DMVs nationwide

It’s often surprising to learn just how many things in our modern world are connected — unfortunately, the surprise usually comes when those connections break. Today we learned that state departments of motor vehicles nationwide are linked up, and we know because this morning there was a problem that whole network down.

States across the country reported a “national outage” that shut down license transactions. It was a breakdown having to do with software these departments share, which is provided by a private entity called the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. 

The AAMVA, in a statement, said, “The network that connects motor vehicle agencies across the United States to each other and to various verification services experienced an outage due to a loss in cloud connectivity.” 

The system was down from 9:50 a.m. EDT to 12:30 p.m., with nearly all states back in business by 2 p.m.

“During that time, there was no ability to process messages that support transactions of driver licenses and motor vehicle titles. This prevented a number of motor vehicle agencies from issuing driver licenses and vehicle titles during the outage,” the AAMVA said.

Everything’s up and running again, but the organization is trying to nail down the root cause of the connectivity break.

This only affected license transactions — including renewals you may have attempted online. But Colorado, to cite one example noted by NBC, and presumably other states were still able to conduct written driver’s license tests or fill records requests.