By Kirsten Vala
6. "We're just as good at breaking the law as enforcing it..."
DMV employees must deal with the public and handle sensitive information, but unsavory characters can slip through anyway. Consider North Carolina license examiner George Sidbury, convicted in 2004 for assaulting a 16-year-old girl taking her road test, or California DMV instructor Calvin Hoang Cat, who in 2005 pleaded no contest to 29 charges of fondling or talking lewdly to teenage girls and women. But more common are the opportunists, looking to use their position to make a quick buck. New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Connecticut and California have all uncovered DMV scams in the past 10 years, in which employees granted driver's licenses to illegal immigrants for a hefty profit. FBI indictments in a 2006 Oakland, Calif., case identified 10 people in a black market conspiracy to sell driver's licenses -- five of them DMV employees.
"There's a high demand for valid ID obtained through fraudulent means," says Jason King, of the AAMVA. Fraud is a problem on both sides of the DMV counter, he says, and the fact that so many employees are being caught shows how committed the DMV is to addressing the problem.
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7. "...and we all but enable identity theft."
Identity theft is the No. 1 crime in the U.S., according to Werner Raes, president of the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators. The simplest form, mostly used by beginners, is to ask the DMV for a duplicate license in someone else's name. Identity thieves simply tell the DMV clerk that they've lost their license or that it was stolen, then provide someone else's illegally obtained information. It's a simple con to pull off. As for the victims, there's nothing simple about it -- their credit will be ruined as checks start bouncing and new credit card accounts are opened in their name.
Some state DMVs are beginning to take precautions against identity theft, such as checking a database of past photographs before renewing or mailing the completed license to the address provided. Nevertheless, Raes recommends checking your credit report at least once a year to see if there's any unusual activity.
8. "Just because you can't see doesn't mean you can't drive."
Everybody thinks they're a good driver, but a 2007 study by market-research firm TNS showed that one in six drivers would fail a state test if they took it today. Indeed, most people get their driver's license in their teens and are never retested. One big problem over time is vision, which tends to degenerate, says Richard Bensinger, a Seattle ophthalmologist and American Academy of Ophthalmology spokesperson. Physical impairments, along with macular degeneration, glaucoma and cataracts can make older drivers less safe behind the wheel, and it's projected that by the year 2025 drivers over age 65 will make up 25 percent of the driving population, up from 14 percent in 2001, according to nonprofit research outfit the RAND Corporation.
When renewing your license, vision-test requirements, like everything else, vary by state. And while the trend is moving toward age-related regulations, according to a 2007 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety report, 24 states still do not require older drivers to renew more often or have their vision tested when renewing.
Bensinger says that he will sometimes make recommendations about license restrictions for his patients, suggesting a person shouldn't be allowed to drive at night or on high-speed roads. But ultimately, it's the DMV's decision. Family members (along with physicians and police officers) can likewise recommend that the DMV check up on someone they think is a danger on the road -- though it varies by state whether such tips can be made confidentially or not.
9. "Your vanity plate says 'MUG ME.'"
Personalized license plates might seem like a harmless accessory, but they could make you a more likely target for criminals. Why? Because they communicate much more than the written message. "Personalized plates indicate that the person bearing them wants to be noticed," says Phil Messina, a retired New York City police officer and founder of a self-defense school in Lindenhurst, N.Y. "The downside of doing things that tend to 'get you noticed' is that they can get you noticed by the wrong kind of people."
Consumer advocate Tim Duffy agrees, pointing out that plates indicating the driver is a woman or a senior citizen or both -- as in "Katie's Grandma" -- are especially problematic. Spotting one of these plates in a parking lot, a mugger may hide behind or near the car, waiting for the driver to return. "You don't want to be a victim of a crime," Duffy says, "and you don't want to make it easier for someone to commit a crime."
10. "Fake ID? We fall for it all the time."
A driver's license is often considered the default form of identification in the U.S., used to board airplanes, rent cars and open bank accounts. Yet it's not hard at all to obtain one illegally by taking advantage of the weakest link in the U.S. identification system: the birth certificate. "I can show 60 to 70 ways to get a birth certificate, either fake or real," says Werner Raes, of the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators. And as a result, "you can go in and get driver's licenses all day long in this country, in any name you want."
Since the Department of Motor Vehicles also issues alternative nondriver's license ID cards -- a real state-revenue booster -- the DMV is, in effect, being used as the leading identification verifier in a country where national security is increasingly important and terrorism is an ever-looming threat. Yet it's not their main responsibility. "Their task is to certify that people can operate a motor vehicle," says Raes.
The best solution? Raes would argue that it's national identification cards. But many groups are opposed to the idea, saying the lack of privacy would overshadow the safety and security benefits. Not to mention create another civil service bureaucracy for the public to navigate.
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