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From: dman@homxa.UUCP (#D.ANDERSON)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Driver's licenses in the USA
Message-ID: <197@homxa.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-May-84 10:49:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: homxa.197
Posted: Sat May  5 10:49:35 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 6-May-84 01:07:49 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 29

I have a gripe about the licensing system in the United States that has
caused me grief in the past (or at least pseudo-grief):

  Why isn't there a National Driver's License?

I cannot see the advantage of each state duplicating the task of keeping
track of violators, inspections and testing, while it could be done much
more uniformally from a central point. It would mean that if I moved to
another state before my license ran out, I would not have to pay another
licensing fee, and all the paperwork that is necessary to transfer my
driving record from state A to state B would go away. I would not be able
to run away from a bad driving record. I could buy a plate for my car once,
when I got it and never worry about one from a different state. Differences
in inspections from state to state would not exist. Standards in safety
and road rules would become uniform.

Granted, the states would fight this hard. Money from the issue of plates
and licenses would no longer come into the state. But a driver would only
need to be licensed once, with a re-test every X years and ridiculous
local driving regulations would go away in favor of a standardized (safer)
set of rules. In short, this would be more convenient for everyone, and it
would make everyone happier, except possibly traffic violators or the
advocates of stronger "state-control".

I am not a big-government advocate. But I do think that a system that is
naturally uniform could be better run in a centralized way. It just doesn't
seem reasonable to do a job 50 times in 50 different ways when it could
be done right once.
					Dave Anderson  201-949-5552