Computer woes strike MVD offices

Multistate outages frustrate customers

SANTA FE — Computer problems frustrated people across the state this week as they tried to renew or obtain driver’s licenses at state Motor Vehicle Division offices.

An outage Thursday morning was caused by an error as the state updated its computer system, and there were intermittent disruptions Friday that affected other states, too — the result of problems with servers operated by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, said Ben Cloutier, a spokesman for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department.

“We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers as we’ve worked through these issues,” Cloutier said in a written statement.

Pete Warner, a Los Alamos resident, said he spent more than two hours Friday morning in Santa Fe trying to renew his license, only to be told he couldn’t complete the transaction because a computer system was down.

“That’s two hours of productivity I lost for nothing,” he said in an interview. “I’m going to have start all over again.”

Isaac Padilla of Albuquerque said he spent about five hours over the course of two days trying to replace his license, with computer trouble holding up the work.

It was “very frustrating,” he said.

Cloutier said Thursday’s outage was the result of an “internal error” as MVD updated its system. It was fixed by noon, he said, and the system was working in the afternoon.

There were “intermittent service interruptions” Friday, Cloutier said, because of server trouble that affected multiple states. The servers are operated by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, he said, and New Mexico is working with the group now to “ensure their quality of services.”