Going to the DMV is not usually a fun experience, but for some, it's been particularly difficult this summer.

Earlier this month, the Cuomo administration began urging New Yorkers to trade in their old drivers licenses for enhanced "Real IDs." By 2020, all states must comply with the new harder-to-duplicate enhanced licenses, and now, there is a rush to get it.

"For someone who has been here 30 years I can tell you right now this is the worst it has ever been. The worst. On both sides of the counter. Customers are frustrated. Folks on our side of the counter are frustrated," said Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola.

The law requiring the enhanced licenses passed Congress in 2005 as a post-9/11 security measure. States were given until 2020 to comply. But New York State didn't start offering the licenses until late last year, a little more than two years before the deadline.

"Amazing that New York State, of all states, we should have been the first ones to sign on to Real ID, and we were actually one of the last states. We waited until the end. Ten years, this has been out there," Merola said.

Summer months are the busiest for the DMV, with people getting boat and motorcycle licenses around the state. County clerks say had they been consulted about when to roll out promotions for enhanced ID, they would have told the Cuomo administration to do it around the December holidays, not during July.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Cuomo administration says, "REAL ID compliance requirements date back to 2005, three administrations ago -- but under Governor Cuomo’s leadership the program is being successfully executed two years before the compliance deadline, and with extensive public engagement to ensure New Yorkers have the facts about this federal program."

In the meantime, people want to make sure they are in compliance, and don't always know the deadlines.

"Becuase if I'm traveling in the future, I'm not going to want to carry my passport all the time just to go to Florida, just to go wherever. It will just be easier to travel inside the country."

New York is in full compliance with federal law and hasn't missed any deadlines. But critics say New York State should have been a little quicker out of the gate on this.