4,000 North Carolinians take advantage on first day of new DMV service

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- With the North Carolina DMV rolling out expanded service, ABC11 spoke to people about their experience at the DMV.

"I went there early in the morning. I had to wait. I still got in and was able to get everything that I needed to do. It took me like two, three hours, said Brielle Kasdan, a Raleigh resident.

For commercial drivers like Tyajia Battle, her renewal was a bit more complicated.

"It's only a certain amount of people. As of right now, we only have one person for the whole county, so it's kind of hard right now. So it's tough," said Battle.

Gov. Josh Stein signed Senate Bill 245 into law, allowing eligible North Carolina drivers without a REAL ID to renew their licenses remotely for a second consecutive time.

According to NCDOT, provisions of the law also allow those with REAL ID driver licenses to renew online if the person has had an in-person transaction where a new photo was taken since their last renewal.

"In many cases, those in-person transactions were to get a REAL ID outside of the customer's renewal period, but also include name changes, in-state address changes and duplicates." NCDOT said in a press release.

NCDMV anticipates that these additional renewals will be available in the coming weeks.

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"We've had a lot of legislative and executive support from the governor and the auditor, and so we're grateful for that. It's really helping us make a lot of progress," said Marty Homan, communications manager for the NC DMV.

Homan said that about 4,000 people took advantage of the new service within the first day.

Homan also said that 64 people were hired in 30 days, providing more employees to help more customers.

"We're hard at work every day to do what we can to make things better. And so, yeah, we're not where we want to be yet, but we're making progress every day," said Homan.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to clarify that Senate Bill 245 allows drivers without a REAL ID to renew their licenses remotely for a second consecutive time. It also notes how this applies to those with REAL IDs.