When considering my article for this quarter’s MOVE magazine, I was struck by the appropriateness of the magazine’s name for what we do. Our collective goal as the motor vehicle community is to ensure our residents are able to move their families, friends, employees and themselves in a safe and secure manner. We help move customers who require additional assistance by processing disability placard applications. We strive to move our teams to deliver better customer service. We work to move the needle toward lower service times, leveraging technology to make our service more convenient. We challenge ourselves to move and allocate our resources in the most effective and efficient manner possible. The challenge of how we move is even on the move with development of autonomous vehicles.

Instilling a culture of continuous improvement in all aspects of our service means we need to strive for new ways to move and improve. Albert Einstein wrote: “It is the same with people as it is with riding a bike. Only when moving can one comfortably maintain one’s balance.” When we stop striving for improvement, we lose our momentum, and that is when we fall.

One way we, as the AAMVA community, move forward is reflected in the recently updated Ignition Interlock Program Best Practices Guide. The guide notes more than 10,000 people die every year in alcohol-related crashes, and it estimates ignition interlock devices prevented 2.3 million alcohol-impaired driving attempts since 2006. The guide also highlights the trials in ensuring reciprocity between jurisdictions and the challenges facing law enforcement in handling impacted drivers. By striving to continually improve and update our programs, we are able to move toward our customers receiving the best service possible.

AAMVA provides access to a host of resources that can move our continuous improvement initiatives forward, thus allowing states to learn from each other’s work and facilitating the opportunity to improve the customer experience in all jurisdictions. With nearly every jurisdiction facing a strain on resources, the drive to keep moving forward is best facilitated through working together. Collaborating with colleagues in other states enables us to use scarce resources wisely and move with the needs of our customers. My hope is to inspire you to make a move toward excellence today—nurture a relationship with a colleague, get involved with an AAMVA working group, inform yourself or your team about best practices, or improve your sphere of influence in some other way. Let’s get moving!

Rhonda Lahm
2018–2019 AAMVA Chair of the Board