Connecticut’s most recent revision is pretty sophisticated. Credit card style with both sides full custom printed. Holograms in the lamination too. Takes about 15 minutes to get one in the mall kiosk.
Maryland is on the spot. And it can be really quick, too, if you go to an express office during off-hours. This doesn’t work the first time you apply for an ID, but after that you don’t have to deal with the ugliness that is one of the central offices. I think the last time I got a new license I was in and out in ten minutes.
Unfortunately I had to trade the nice old-style license for one of the new ones with the demonic clip-art crab in the corner. 
Maryland used to have laminated cards; now the licenses are hard plastic. IDs were/are handed out on the spot in either case, so that’s probably not the issue.
It’s even worse when you move to MN from WI, where they make licenses on the spot. I always thought the two states were pretty comparable, so I was pretty surprised to learn how backwards MN is. That waiting period (and chintzy “paper license” you’re supposed to use) sucks.
And to add insult to injury, the MN license is pretty ugly and isn’t as durable as the WI credit-card style ones. It’s the same size, but made of flimsier plastic. I was warned not to store it in my back pocket because it could break that way.
C’mon, MN --> get with the times! You’re a good state, catch up.
Pennsylvania here and same day service. We also have the credit card like style.
For years – decades, even – it’s been normal to get the license the same day here in NJ, even with photos. Now you get a nifty digital “impossible to photocopy, difficult to forge” one. When I renewed mine, I was in & out of the office in about a half hour, tops. Including the newly-strengthened security I.D. procedures.
When I first moved to Washington in 1993, it was an instant ID state. When I went in to replace a lost license last year at about this time, it was “Here’s your paper ID, the other will be mailed to you.” This changed sometime between 1999 and last year, as in 1999 (when I got the now-lost license) it was still instant ID.
Georgia has instant licenses, too. You can even renew on the 'net if you want to keep your old picture.
Addendum: after renewing online (or by mail), the next time you renew, you to go in person.
Ohio- (2000)-on the spot
Florida(1998-2000)- on the spot
California (at least in 1998)- wait FOREVER (6 weeks in the mail)
Can someone tell me about Texas? One month until moving day and I’ll need to get a license ASAP as my Ohio one expires in January.
Ah, but that new ID procedure can be a huge, huge pain for first-time licensees, if they’re young. When I got mine, my mom and I gathered up about ten different things - school ID, passport, letter from school to them, transcript, etc. If you’re seventeen and don’t have a passport and no utility bills of your own, it can cause problems.
True. Actually I had a bit of a difficulty, because my passport and other official stuff had my middle name on it, whereas my old D/L did not. So I had to go get my birth certificate, which of course had my birth name on it, so I also had to bring my marriage license. Just so that they could add a middle initial.
The other weird thing (bit of a hijack) was that last time I got my passport renewed, they asked for my driver’s license as I.D., but my d/l at the time did not have a photo. Fortunately I also had a photo I.D. from work. But I thought it strange that the passport office asked for a driver’s license, and the motor vehicle place took the passport that had been obtained with the previous driver’s license. Sort of recursive.
In Arizona you walk in with the old one and walk out with the new one. Not sure if it’s different if you’re getting your first ID, but it probably isn’t.
My VA identification is similar. It’s color laser-printed on PVC card stock which is preprinted with a microprinted “border” that reads Commonwealth of Virginia. It is overlaid with a clear lamination tile-printed in metallic gold with the state outline and the word Virginia. The equipment isn’t that sophisticated. Color PVC-card laser printers are even available to consumers with a few thousand bucks to spend. The hard parts (the printed lamination and the microprinted border) are done off-site somewhere, probably by contract.
/slight hijack/
In Virginia, they used to have a two-part driver’s license.
Part “B” was the photo-ID part.
Part “A” was an addendum that fit into a pocket on the back of the license. This part had any restrictions, etc.
As a youthful driver (one could one’s license at 15years, 8months of age) one went to the DMV and tested and, if you passed the written and driving exams, you got part “B” of your license that day.
You also received a schedule for a court hearing a few weeks off.
In court, you sat and watched your peers who had committed driving violations go before the judge and plead their case. Then watch in horror as more than half of them got their driving privileges revoked until they were 18 or 21 or, worse yet, handcuffed and trotted off to jail.
To make matters worse, the one judge that heard such cases was a hard-nosed fellow. You had to be dressed properly (jacket and tie for young men; dress or skirt for young ladies); males had to be shaven and with a proper haircut (military length or close to it). This was in 1976. Few young men in my hometown of newly-achieved driving age had long hair anymore.
Additionally, my dad was a friend of the judge.
That didn’t mean that I would get special treatment. That only meant that the judge knew my dad would beat my hiney if I had to go to court for a violation.
/here endeth the slight hijack/
Did they change this? When I moved to Georgia in November 1999, I switched over my license and was given a temporary one (with my photo on it that looked just like the real one - plastic and all), with my real license mailed to me two or three weeks later.
Of the other states I’ve had licenses - TN, MS and OH, all give the license the same day. Although Ohio with their “first you go here to take the test, then you have to go to this other place to get your actual license” drove me bananas.
Ohio has changed this. They now have some BMV stations where you can take the test and receive the license in the same building. I got mine at the station on East Broad st.
Not in the Youngstown area - it’s still multiple stops here.
In MA, about two years ago, I walked in with my paper learners permit and walked out with an idenitical, if less beat up, paper licence. My came in the mail awhile later. And in the infinite brilliance of this state, I have a under 21 licence, it’s vertical, not horizontal. To make it easier to get carded. One problem. It expirers on my 22nd birthday. Alas, I hope to have it replaced with a Cali one in six or so months.