General Question

raum's avatar

Should addresses be removed from driver licenses?

Asked by raum (13382points) September 27th, 2019 from iPhone

An elderly woman was a victim of a violet purse snatching. After dragging the poor woman for a bit, the perpetrator made off with her purse and keys.

Then while she was waiting for police, he drove to her house (one town over) and attempted to burglarize her home. Luckily, her husband was able to ward him off.

We are often warned not to put our address on our keys. But if they are usually kept in the same place with our wallets, isn’t that essentially the same thing?

Agencies that need our address should be able to look it up with an access code online. Walking around with personal information seems a bit archaic in this day and age.

Am I missing something? Is there a good reason to keep it?

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9 Answers

KNOWITALL's avatar

No, I believe the purpose was cross-checking LEO info vs license, so security.
No one ever sees my license unless its identification at the bank or something official.
Bad luck for the lady though, hurting and robbing old people is terrible.

raum's avatar

What is the purpose of cross-checking? Couldn’t police officers have access code to scan DLs without it actually being printed on there?

It’s way past my bed time, so it’s entirely possible that I’m missing something obvious here.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@raum I know, I woke up at four, just got back from a run. Now I’m a bit more alert lol. Hope all is well.

Quick identification seems pretty important in criminal situations though.

Lightlyseared's avatar

If your address isn’t on the licence the police asking you address and checking with the database is more secure than them asking for information off the ID you’ve just given them.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@Lightly If the license and ins cards both match the database, plus picture, seems fairly quick. What if the database is down? I’m basically proving who I am, that seems to me to be my responsibility imo. My tags match my papers, papers match license.
I dont want time wasted on little ol me if a criminal is in a car like mine. Thats my thought process.

Tropical_Willie's avatar

After the hurricanes and big storms in North Carolina people trying to get back into the evacuation area had to show picture ID WITH address for the area they were going to.
It boils down to are you a resident or a potential looter!

LadyMarissa's avatar

I keep neither my drivers license nor my house keys in my purse. My DL is kept in my pocket & my house keys are kept in the trunk of my car. I take the keys out of the trunk & go into my house with keys in my hand; & when leaving, I lock the house & place them back in the trunk before leaving home. What bugs me is we’re required to keep our vehicle registration & insurance card in our car at all times & they also give out too much info!!!

Pandora's avatar

The problem with relying on everything thing electronically is that systems can go down during a black out or be too flooded with request during emergency situations. I know if I were involved in some accident it would be good if emergency personal or cops could quickly access my information to notify anyone who may need to make emergency decisions for me.

raum's avatar

LOL!

Prime example of why you shouldn’t Fluther while half asleep. Obviously need it printed on your DL in case of emergencies when systems are down.

Major duh.

Thanks for humoring my delirious fluthering. Still feel bad about that old lady though. :(

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