HOUSTON – It's not just the crush of people all around you, it's the waiting that drives you nuts, as you listen to that computer-generated-voice calling out the next number to be served, and you're a long way from it.
As I walk into the Houston Gessner Mega Center in Southwest Houston, on the worst possible day, Monday, at the worst possible time, high noon, I am looking at a two and a half hour wait, with 300 people in front of me.
"I spent the whole day at the DPS office", said Miriam Kwocha, who walked in at ten in the morning and didn't walk out until three o'clock in the afternoon.
The good news is you don't have to wait hour after hour at your local DPS office.
There are nine different DPS offices in the Houston area and Local 2 Investigates has pulled the documents and crunched the numbers to come up with the average wait times at every one of those offices, which enables us to give you a guide to the slowest DPS offices and the fastest.
The slowest DPS office, according to figures from the Texas Department of Public Safety, is the Houston Townhurst location at 1601 Townhurst Drive.
The average wait time, as of June, 60 minutes, and that's just the average, you could wait longer.
The next slowest is The Gessner Mega Center 12220 South Gessner in Southwest Houston.
Average wait time here, in June, 57 minutes.
What about the fastest DPS offices?
The Houston Winkler office, located at 9206 Winkler, comes in at third place with an average wait time of just 18 minutes.
The next fastest is the Vantage Parkway DPS office located at 15403 Vantage Parkway East, Suite 300 in Houston. The average wait time here was clocked at 17 minutes.
And the absolute, fastest DPS office in our area is the Rosenberg Mega Center located at 28000 Southwest Freeway, Suite A, Rosenberg, Texas.
The average wait time here, according to the DPS is 13 minutes.
Ali Mtinginya drove 25 miles to get to The Rosenberg Mega Center, because he says it's worth it.
"I walk in, the lady is there to help me, and it takes like four minutes. It's done and I'm out", said Mtinginya.