Indiana BMV offices ranked nation’s best in analysis of reviews

Indiana’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles offices came out on top of a nationwide analysis of more than 1.2 million Google reviews of public vehicle registration and driver’s license offices — despite having no locations in the top 10.

The analysis, conducted by SEO Backlinks, began with roughly 4,600 Google Maps listings of every motor vehicle office in the country with at least 50 reviews as of Monday. Private registration and tag services, AAA branches, road test sites and closed sites were dropped to leave state, county and official contract offices.

The analysis includes nearly 2,500 locations across the 50 states and Washington, D.C., that have at least 100 reviews each.

The average score nationwide is 3.8 stars, but the Indiana offices scored highest — averaging 4.16 stars.

That’s despite having no Hoosier locations in the top 10. That shortlist featured several offices in Florida and Oklahoma, as well as in North Carolina, Missouri, Colorado and Texas. The highest score was 4.96 across 296 reviews.

Louisiana, meanwhile, had five locations on the list of the 10 worst-rated offices, with the lowest score at 1.95 across 521 reviews. Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee also had poorly reviewed locations.

“Nobody expects to enjoy a trip to the DMV, but I didn’t expect the gap between the best and worst offices to be this big,” SEO Backlinks founder Oliver Weston said in a news release. “The top offices in Florida and Oklahoma score close to five stars, and people there talk about being in and out in 10 or 20 minutes. At the bottom, people describe losing most of a day.”

He recommended checking reviews before visiting a branch, plus booking an appointment if available, “because that comes up in the reviews again and again.”

Indiana does allow Hoosiers to make appointments online, as well as to schedule a driving skills exam.