Long lines continue to form outside of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission offices for the second week.

Frustrations were high as hundreds of people gathered to get their driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. Many people waited on the lines for hours.

“I think it’s lazy. I think you have a job, you should do it, or at least attempt to do it. It looks like they did nothing here,” said Luka Gabriel Appelbaum, of Monroe Township.

MVC chief administrator Sue Fulton apologized for the inconvenience and addressed the anger and frustrations.

“I am sorry. I am sorry for the inconvenience. I am sorry we are not able to get to you. This is a difficult situation. We are in a COVID-19 world now,” Fulton says.

News 12 New Jersey asked Fulton why the agency was so backlogged.

“I did not anticipate the level of anxiety. People, even though they have four months to get their transactions done, many of them, they want it right now. When we tell them, this is as many as we can do today, come back another day, they don’t leave,” Fulton says.

 

Fulton says that the state’s financial issues caused by the pandemic are also contributing to the backlog.

“We do not have the funds to add staff that would allow us to extend hours,” she says.

Fulton says that anyone with an expired license or registration now has until the end of September to renew. She says that it can be done online or customers can visit the MVC next month so that they can focus on new licenses and registrations.

Fulton says that the MVC was not considered to be an essential business.

“Our situation is less like Walmart and a grocery store where you have high shelves and necessary food and supplies people need,” she says. “We are much more like indoor dining where people are very close quarters. We couldn’t reopen as we were. We needed extensive refitting,” she says.

Fulton says that people may line up outside the MVC offices at 7 a.m. – but she asks that people refrain from camping out overnight. She says that anyone who misses the cutoff is asked to come back the next day or next week.

Fulton says that despite calls to resign, she will continue to serve the public to the best of her ability.