DMV reopens 25 field offices, including Santa Rosa, for appointments

After six weeks of field office closures, the California Department of Motor Vehicles on Friday will reopen a handful of offices statewide, including its Santa Rosa office on Corby Avenue, but is alerting drivers they must go online first to set up an appointment.

The reopening of 25 offices comes after the agency spent the last month-plus transitioning much of its work online to what it calls it's new “virtual field office” to reduce crowding at field offices.

Although the switch to more online transactions was prompted in part by the coronavirus crisis, the DMV is expected to maintain that approach in the future, limiting the need for Californians to go to field offices.

For now, some 170 field offices remain closed. DMV officials say they will begin opening more of those offices over the next few weeks.

In a Thursday public statement, the department announced that employees will maintain physical distancing while serving customers.

The department cautioned drivers that there likely will be high number of people attempting to make appointments. “Californians who do not have an urgent need to go to a DMV field office should delay their visit,” the agency wrote.

The main transactions that are now done in person, rather than on the DMV website, are:

- Paying registration for a vehicle impounded because of registration-related issues

- Reinstating a suspended or revoked driver license

- Applying for a reduced-fee or no-fee identification card

- Processing commercial driver license transactions

- Applying for a disabled person parking placards

- Adding an ambulance certificate or firefighter endorsement to a driver license

- Verifying a transit training document to drive a transit bus

- Processing DMV Express customers for REAL ID transactions, if time and space allows

All other transactions can now be conducted by going to the state DMV website at www.dmv.ca.gov of at the virtual field office page at virtual.dmv.ca.gov.

The DMV has relaxed some deadlines and made other changes as a result of the coronavirus crisis, giving some drivers time extensions. Those include, according to the DMV:

-Extending all driver licenses that expire between March 1 and May 31, 2020. Drivers 70 years and older are receiving a 120-day temporary paper extension in the mail, and drivers 69 and younger can request a free temporary paper extension online.

- Keeping expiring commercial licenses, endorsements and certificates valid through June 30, 2020.

- Extending identification cards expiring on or after March 4, 2020, to be valid through June 22, 2020.

- Waiving late fees and penalties for vehicle registration renewals due between March 16 and May 31, 2020, and paid within 60 days of the original expiration date, as well as delaying other requirements.

- Temporarily waiving required in-person renewals for eligible driver license and identification cardholders with expirations in March, April, and May 2020. Individuals who meet the criteria are able to renew online or by mail.

- Launching the DMV Virtual Field Office to create new digital options for transactions that previously required an in-person office visit.

- Canceling all behind-the-wheel drive tests to honor social distancing guidelines.

- Suspending extended office hours and Saturday service.