The problem should further encourage the Legislature to deal with this agency this year, providing a framework for responsibility and accountability that has long been absent. Accountability is required to ensure that if something goes wrong, a solution is applied. A shrug of the shoulders doesn't qualify as corrective action.

Project Phoenix, the agency's relatively new computer system, was supposed to provide many of the solutions to the agency's problems. Instead it has been blamed for long lines, information glitches to county auditors, and this latest woe, which makes law-abiding drivers appear to be in violation of licensing requirements. Clearly there are fundamental problems yet to be addressed.

(Last month, a DMV spokesman blamed most of the ongoing woes on employee error. Maybe the DMV's difficulties are sufficiently numerous to spread the blame among both human and mechanical components of the agency.)

Gov. Mark Sanford has endorsed a proposal to make DMV a Cabinet agency, a plan that would have its director appointed by the governor, and answerable to him. Such an arrangement would help produce informed solutions and straight answers.

Lawmakers should proceed with a reform of the agency early this session. The sooner that the Legislature proceeds with the overdue administrative overhaul of DMV, the sooner that South Carolina can expect corrective action to produce an agency that adequately serves the public.