Will driving license be obsolete in the future ?

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by kraznyi_oktjabr

A little question: What is legal status of driver's license in US? Here in Finland driver's license is not legal ID document, only official ID card and passport are. This despite fact that previously driver's licenses were issued by police (now by Trafi). In practice however there is no major difference: both are accepted as proof of age in night clubs, liquor stores etc. or as proof of identity in banks (as far as I know, I don't have driver's license so don't know for sure of banks).

An interesting question.

In the US, there is no single identification document that applies to all citizens. Members of the military have federal military ID cards and citizens who choose to travel passports. But neither of those conditions pertain to the majority of citizens.

The only federal document that the majority (but not all) citizens have is their Social Security Administration Identify Card (commonly called Social Security Card). But since this card does not have a picture on it, it only serves to help identify someone when associated with other forms of picture ID.

Identification documents are normally at the State level. But even State issued ID documents are not required. As I wrote before, if a citizen wishes to use a service they may be required to have ID, but it is still possible to live, albeit getting more difficult, without a state issued ID.

Since most people drive in the US and in order to operate a motor vehicle on the public roads, a citizen must have and carry a driver's license, the DL has become a de facto "ID card" in the US.

Citizens who choose not to drive can get a State ID card to carry if they so wish.

One of the more contentious issues is whether the police have the right to stop a citizen and ask "let me see your papers!". That conservation gets people spun up more than guns in this country.

This all originated from the basis of our country. Originally we were truly a union of individual states, hence the name United States of America. The original intent was that each state would be responsible for what happens inside its borders and that the federal government would only handle those specific inter-state issues.

Unfortunately/fortunately, there has been a movement for the past 150 years to move toward what could be accurately called "the United Federation of America where the federal government has much more authority inside each individual state.

Now there are advantages and disadvantages to the United Federation of America.

However,it is my opinion that a move from the United States of America to the United Federation of America needs to be done wittingly and with the express consent of the citizens. Unfortunately, the transition to the UFA has been by a series of tiny (and not so tiny) steps for the past 150 years stating with the implementation of the Incorporation Doctrine with respect to the US Constitution--- a decision never put directly to the citizens for approval.

So right now, the State issued Driver's license/ID card is the closest thing to a nationally accepted ID card.

IN 2005, the US Congress passed the REA LID Act (PL 109-13) which was designed to implement some standard in the different state issued ID. Before 2005, there was no real interstate standardization of state issued ID cards-- each state did it their way.

One of the major complaints of the REAL ID Act was that by the federal government mandating interstate standardization, this was creating a de facto national ID card. The counter to this is that each state controls and keeps the identifying information. The counter to this counter is that the states share information freely between themselves and federal government.

Things are seldom easy in the USA/UFA.