Motor Club to End DMV Services to Non-Members

AAA Northeast has informed the state it will discontinue offering driver licensing services for people in southwest Connecticut who are not members of its motor clubs.

The AAA office in the Compo Shopping Center before it closed in 2015. Previously it had been on Saugatuck Avenue. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

The decision brought an angry response today from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who called the action “unacceptable” and threatened legal action to resolve the issue.

AAA Northeast has offered this service to all Connecticut residents since 2001, regardless whether they were members. 

Eight AAA Northeast offices are affected. They are in Branford, Danbury, Fairfield, Hamden, Milford, Norwalk, Stamford, and Waterbury. The Westport office closed in 2015.

“AAA Northeast’s decision to stop servicing non-members is rather shocking since Connecticut has always valued our working relationship with AAA,” Malloy said in a letter to AAA Northeast President and CEO Mark A. Shaw.

“The State of Connecticut and AAA have enjoyed a mutually beneficial private-public partnership for many years.  Up to this point, the history of our partnership has been nothing but positive.”

AAA Allied, which serves the other half of the state, has indicated that it will continue to serve both members and non-members.

“DMV has made real, demonstrable progress throughout this year to lower wait times and improve customer experience,” the governor wrote. “We will not allow the actions of AAA Northeast to disrupt that progress.”

AAA Northeast said the decision was necessary because the number of office transactions has nearly doubled and the number of non-member transactions has increased from 17 percent five years ago to almost 50 percent in 2016.

“Today we have made the difficult decision that we can no longer effectively service the volume of DMV customers visiting our offices without negatively impacting services to our members,” AAA Northeast said in a statement.

Shaw, the AAA Northeast CEO, added that AAA Northeast will now allow members to also use their offices for vehicle registration services in addition to licensing.

“I am hopeful that the state will demonstrate a willingness to work with AAA on this matter,” Shaw said in a statement.

“After working so closely with the DMV for all these years, and completing well over a million registry transactions at no cost to the state, I remain optimistic that we will find a way to move forward that allows our long-standing partnership to continue.”