Revamping Your Driver's License

摘要

Let's dispense with the mythology right up front. A driver's license has never been just about driving. When the first ones were issued in the early 1900s, the idea was to collect fees, not to test driving skills. More recently, revoking licenses became a way to punish people who didn't pay child support or, in Wisconsin, shovel snow off their walks. In its most coveted form, the license is proof of age ― or of fraud, as the case may be. In college, for example, I was not Amanda Ripley from New Jersey; I was Amanda Jones from California. I lived on Yellowbrick Road and looked suspiciously joyful in the photo, which was taken in the dorm room of an unsavory character to whom I had paid $40.