ID checks in the US

I’ve noticed that I am asked for ID in the US much more often than in Australia – usually when checking into hotels or hostels, and quite often when paying with a credit card. The amusing aspect of this is, however, that every time I’ve been asked for ID, they have accepted my Victorian driver’s licence without question (my passport is in my money belt, and I can’t be bothered going through the effort of getting it out).

Now, I’d bet that none of these people have ever seen a Victorian licence before, and certainly wouldn’t be able to tell a fake one from a genuine one. Most probably wouldn’t even know where Victoria was, nor whether it was a jurisdiction that is allowed to issue licences at all. I could imagine them accepting an official-looking laminated piece of plastic with my photo and “City of Wangaratta Driver’s Licence” written on it, too.

5 responses to “ID checks in the US

  1. Mildly amused that there are so many ID checks in the Land of the Free.

  2. I can confirm, from personal experience, that the license does not have to be genuine 🙂 (Being underage again, at 20, was a bit much for this Australian.)

  3. Paul Dwerryhouse blogs about ID checks in the US being more frequent that in Australia and the irony of people accepting a Victorian drivers license with likely no idea what one is meant to look like, or even if it really exists. In a similar vein a fr…

  4. 3 US states have RFID drivers licenses which include their Social Security number & double as passports for nearby countries (Canada, Mexico etc).

    US Social Security & CentreLink share info. How long d’ya reckon we’ve got…?

Leave a Reply to Daniel Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Warning: Illegal string offset 'q' in /var/www/weblog.leapster.org/wp-content/plugins/quiz/quiz.php on line 60

Warning: Illegal string offset 'a' in /var/www/weblog.leapster.org/wp-content/plugins/quiz/quiz.php on line 61

Warning: Illegal string offset 'q' in /var/www/weblog.leapster.org/wp-content/plugins/quiz/quiz.php on line 179

Anti-Spam Quiz: