ee163agb@sdccs7.UUCP (bookmark) (05/13/84)
<- bug snack In California, visitors from out-of-state can drive on their home- state license for six months, after which they must have a CA license. If they establish permanent residence here, they must obtain a CA license right away. To deal with the multiple license problem *here* (although it doesn't help other states much), when visitors get CA licenses, their home- state license is stamped "NOT VALID IN CALIFORNIA." The reason they're not just confiscated is 1) so they *will* be revealed to CA DMV officials, and 2) so that the person can go home and not have to get a new license. California participates in a data-sharing program to catch people with points/violations in other states. It is interesting to note that there is one situation in which it is lawful to drive in CA without a driver's license: when one is operating a vehicle owned by the U.S.. One must, of course, have authority to do so (be a federal employee, etc., not a car thief). This is an example of our interesting system of dual sovereignty (which, despite the modern trend towards overbearing Federal interference in State affairs through highway- and other-funding blackmail, still affects a lot of our legal system). I think proposals to establish a national driver's license are stupid. Besides the obvious danger to liberty, the scheme would be MORE, not less, costly to the taxpayers: all of the current machinery for the issuance and control of licenses would still be required (and Federal civil servants are usually more expensive than State employees), AND all of the states would be forced to maintain their own "identification card" schemes for local purposes (residence classification, etc). Claims that centralizing standards, tests, and record-keeping would save money are not well thought-out. Retraining and re-equipping the various inspectors and employees to apply the new national standards would cost a fortune, and afterwards applying those standards would cost no less than applying the current ones (in any given office). Establishing a giant new breakdown-prone Federal computer facility for record-keeping would cost hundreds of millions for equipment, and have far higher operating costs, what with all the longer-distance phone calls to query the database, and, of course, when it went down, the whole bloody country would be paralyzed. If the current state-by-state systems were retained, then reprogramming them to track the new Federal standard data-set would cost a lot, and entail the total replacement of at least some of the States' otherwise perfectly good equipment. The benefits to be derived? Except for standardizing the forms you'll fill out to get a new license when you move to another state, there will be no benefits. The necessity of a new license (so it'll have your new address on it) upon interstate moves will remain (and don't think that any department store that you want to write a check to is going to trust a "change of address" card stuck on the back of your license). A national driver license isn't needed for points/violations control, because that already exists, and works pretty well, thank you. bookmark
ron@brl-vgr.UUCP (05/14/84)
In Maryland they let me have my old driver's license back after I had surrendered it in Colorado to get a license there. We have 4 year licenses and I still had a year left when I got back. I was prepared to go though the standard out of state ritual (eye and written test) when they asked me why I was applying for a new license when I already have one. I told them that I traded it in for the Colorado one, but they just charged me 6 dollars for a replacement copy and on my official record it shows up as "Change of Address." -Ron