Someone I know did this with his brothers documents without his brother being involved. He took the documents to the DMV and said he lost his license. Pretty much all they had to go on was basic appearance metrics and questions like where you got your license last time. This was in the 90s so it’s possible it might not be as easy now.
Back before 2001, I left my driver's license on a bookshelf 100 miles from home, the day before I was too leave the country for vacation. I took my passport to the DMV, and within about 20 minutes had my new driver's license. I imagine that it would be a vastly greater pain these days.
Don't you have to be pretty ignorant though to strip out the old license and then just replace it with another one? I mean you have to consciously do it.
A distant acquaintance did that in the early 90s, only that person asked for a new drivers license. The clerk attempted to offer a duplicate instead of a new license and the nervous license getter refused until the clerk said, "look I'm trying to save you some money, we still take your picture and give you the license today!"
It also wasn’t that long ago the photo-less driver licenses were phased out in some states. My father had one with no photo on it up until 2004. Anyone could renew by mail, in which case there would not be a photo.
My license dropped out of my pocket when I was visiting a friend in a town 2 hours drive away. Didn't even notice until I got home. 3 weeks later it shows up in the mail. A stranger went through all that trouble to mail it back to me.
Speaking of 'things that should be tracked' - I'm blown away that it didn't raise any red flags when I 'lost' ~50 Drivers Licenses over the course of a year or two.
I had a similar thing except on a much longer timeframe. When I turned 21 I went to renew my license and register a truck I bought. I paid by check. When the lady told me it'd be one sixty three (or something like that) I wrote a check for $1.63. She took it, gave me my paperwork and sent me on my way.
Fast forward 10 years the state must have digitized everything and I received a collection notice in the mail. I hadn't even lived in that state or owned that vehicle for several years. At least my license wasn't invalid.
Have you ever heard of someone getting ticketed for not doing this? I have never once notified the DMV of anything, and have driven for years with old addresses on my license.
And, of course, if you don't drive, none of this applies.
Totally! Cash only, no CC trail or delivery address. I lived in Charlotte NC for a brief period and I bought some lock picks from a "spy outlet" store in a mall. They scanned my driver's license and said they needed to keep it on file for a year. This was ... 1992 maybe? Yikes today.
>The DMV is a sprawling human operated date entry firm fronting for a database and camera
This one really hit home. I went to the DMV a few months ago for the first time in over a decade to upgrade my drivers license to a Real ID (must be done in person, previous renewals were done by mail). The entire process was unchanged from when I first got my license almost 30 years ago.
Stand in one line to check in. Sit down. Wait for your name to be called to stand in a second line to have them manually keypunch the paper form you have to fill out into their computer system. Sit down. Wait for your name to be called to stand in a third line to get your picture taken. Sit down. Wait for your name to be called to stand in a fourth line to pay (slight change here in that they now accept credit cards, up until a few years ago it was cash or checks only). Sit down. Wait for your name to be called to stand in a fifth line to pick up your new license. Leave after several hours.
This whole transaction could have been accomplished with kiosks, 1/10th the number of employees, and 1/4 the amount of floor space in 5 minutes or less.
I don't know if this is unique to NYC or something, but the last time I had to go to the DMV, I scheduled my appointment online ahead of time, walked in 5 minutes before the scheduled appointment, renewed my license, and walked out in about 20 minutes total.
Their site was a little ugly, the clerk who assisted me was a touch curt, but overall the worst part of it was my apprehension about going to the DMV.
I know my situation was simple, but I thought that was the big objection to the DMV: simple things are hard. The whole thing was pretty easy.
They could do the same with current licenses, either temporarily or permanently. When I was in my 20's I had a stack of old but unexpired drivers licenses because having your current address on your license makes makes some things easier.
Not long ago, I got pulled over and discovered my proof of insurance card was out of date. I was able to use the iPhone app of my insurance company to load up a PDF of the most recent copy and prove that my insurance was current. The cop was amazed that I could do this. No ticket. :)
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