State DMV system remains slow after technical glitch

A day after a technical glitch substantially disabled the state Department of Motor Vehicles computer system, the agency acknowledged some residual impact on services Tuesday.

A DMV spokesman blamed the service disruptions on a mainframe upgrade.

Customers at the DMV office at 4031 Hempstead Tpke. in Bethpage experienced the computer delays firsthand.

Many people in line said service seemed slow Tuesday, but they also noticed several customers who were unable to get service on Monday had returned.

"I got here at 10, and it seems like all of the people who were here yesterday are back, which made it slow," said Udham Saini, 54, of Bethpage.

Saini, who needed 21/2 hours to update her license and renew her registration, had also tried the Huntington office on Monday, where she was told computers were down.

Matt Corcoran, the manager at the Bethpage office, confirmed that the computers there were up and running Tuesday.

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Maria Smith, 59, of Farmingdale, came to the Bethpage office for an address change. "I tried to do it online this morning, but the system was down," she said.

It took her two hours at the office to successfully make the change, she said.

William Cotiaux, 55, of Plainview, said he caught a break when an employee told him he could quickly renew his registration at one of the DMV kiosks. "I was in and out in 10 minutes, but otherwise it would have been a couple of hours," he said.

DMV spokesman Pete Bucci said Monday that a mainframe server was upgraded Sunday and tested properly, but couldn't handle the load of actual business, starting Monday morning.

The problems Monday with license and registration transactions involved all 35 offices run by the DMV in major cities, and the offices operated by county clerks upstate.