Required for driving: A driver’s license.
(Photo courtesy of stock.xchng user atirme)
When I first got my driver’s license at 16, I lived in Connecticut. The DMV “nearby” — about a 20-minute drive — was packed with people on a weekday afternoon, and I was a bucket of stress.
Fast forward five years, when I graduated college and moved to Carlisle. I applied for a Pennsylvania license at a driver’s license center — just a few minutes from home, and virtually empty on a weekday morning. I paid the fee and got my photo taken, no problem. Props, Pennsylvania.
Then, the employee explained that while the state ran my photo through facial recognition software (to be sure I wasn’t a criminal masquerading as a small-town journalist, of course), I would be issued a temporary ID. It looked just like my driver’s license… with the word TEMPORARY stamped across it.
I nervously made a joke about still being served at the bar (at 21, I had priorities), which the state employee did not find hilarious at all.
Fast forward again to this month, about eight weeks in advance of the date my license expires, when I received a renewal form in the mail. “Pennsylvania is so progressive!” I thought. “I can renew my license through the mail?!”
Turns out, not true. I can pay the fee online, and submit the form. Now, in eight to 10 days, I’ll receive a voucher of sorts that I can then take to a driver’s license center to have my photo re-taken and complete the process. (Which is a bummer, because I have shockingly somewhat-flattering photo on my license now.)
Either way, it beats the lines at Connecticut’s DMVs.
Also of interest:
– Understanding auto insurance — and Pennsylvania
– What to bring when applying for an on-street parking permit
