If one thinks the lines in airports are long, time-wasting and intimidating, just read further: the already-interminable — and inescapable — wait for service at Division of Motor Vehicle offices in North Carolina is about to double.

As with airports, stepped-up security is the rationale behind the soon-to-skyrocket waiting time at DMV offices. But don’t blame the state government, even though North Carolina’s DMV has long ground on with lackluster service because of under-funding.

Thanks to the recently passed REAL ID Act, a law foisted on the hard-working citizenry by a 9/11-obsessed federal government, everyone applying for a driver’s license renewal next year will be subject to identity checks of the sort that used to be reserved for applicants for a high-level security clearance.

DMV Commissioner William Gore Jr. last week warned that, in some urban areas, the wait for license renewals likely would escalate from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.

That wait in cramped quarters, shifting impatiently in a plastic chair more appropriate to a third-grade classroom, could cause more violence than this new law is supposed to prevent — especially when people finally reach the front of the line only to learn that one of the many pieces of identification demanded is missing.

For example, if one thinks that beautifully engraved hospital certificate with baby’s footprints on it is a valid birth certificate, guess again. Generally, one has to pay a large fee for a notarized certificate from a bureau in one’s state of birth to obtain a birth certificate the government recognizes as valid.

We urge Ashevillians to put pressure on federal and state officials to make the best of this needlessly miserable situation.
Until the general state of paranoia in this nation subsides, onerous federal mandates such as this need to be adequately funded, so that harried, time-pressed citizens are able to receive this vital service in a reasonable time — in our view, 30 minutes tops.

While we agree that increasing security in the face of terrorist threats is reasonable, there comes a point of excess that tips the balance toward a potential police state.

For us, that point is when the waiting time doubles — along with the weight of papers one has to carry in order to prove one’s identity. This law seems to be a big step in the direction of excess government control.