Much to my delight, we canceled the silly project to issue government ID cards.

When most people think of driver's licenses, do they really think government certification, or do they think universal ID? I would be honestly interested in the answer.

Don't you have to take a test to obtain a licence? Here in the UK the test is relatively difficult and expensive, so not everybody has a licence. Passports are much cheaper, easier to obtain and don't come with age limits, so they are a more universal form of ID (though they are also bulky and hardly something you would carry around on you).

When most people think of driver's licenses, do they really think government certification, or do they think universal ID? I would be honestly interested in the answer.

When I think of driver's licences, I think of driving a car. Universal ID doesn't occur.

Why?

-- You have to take a test to get it, but you do that when you are 16 or 17, and never again. In most states, the test is ridiculously easy.

-- In an average year, you probably use it hundreds of times for its ID value (to buy beer at the grocery store or drinks at a bar, to cash a check, to check in for an airline flight), and (hopefully) zero times for the public safety function (showing it to a police officer after being pulled over).

-- Outside of NYC, the fraction of people over the legal driving age who don't have a license has to be less than 10%

No perhaps about it. It seems to the average American, the word "drivers license" evokes "proof of identity" first and "proof of ability to drive a car" second, because they're using theirs as a general ID more often than for its original purpose.

It gets even funnier when American companies operate abroad and require "two photo IDs" in countries where everyone has a government-provided ID card.

This is because the idea of a National ID Card is for some strange reason (strange to this American, I mean) seen as an evil thing by the general public here.

But we all know our number by memory.

I don't. And I use my passport as an ID when two forms of ID is required.

http://www.wanderlust.co.uk/magazine/articles/destinations/a...

Apparently rail travel made the whole process of issuing and checking passports a bit of a pain so most countries just gave up - they didn't become common again until 1914.

It's not strangely low; Americans can travel to far more than the equivalent of the EU without one. (We can go to all 50 plus Canada and Mexico.)

:(

Edit: Since June 2009.

The US Gov does now issue passport cards which are a form of national ID card that allows citizens back in at international LAND borders. You should ask for one when you apply for your passport; they're nice to carry in your pocket when you're abroad and the full passport is safely locked away.

Yes, it looks like we speak the same language, but the diversity in "American" is at least as broad as the difference between the middle of "American" and "received English". (Yes, I'm aware that there's a lot of diversity in UK English.)

Yes, Americans mostly watch the same TV, but our exports and castoffs are not unknown in Europe.

I've lived in the UK and Oz and in both countries my drivers license stays in my wallet ready for when an over eager bouncer to ask me to prove my age or for when I sign up to a new video store on a whim. My passport pretty much stays at home unless I'm going to the airport.

Obviously, just kidding.