Mr. Rilch, Friend and I were talking about the Jenna Bush situation. Friend used to be a bouncer, but that was here in CA. He said that when he was given an ID he couldn’t accept, he simply turned the bearer away, but didn’t call the cops*. He mentioned that if an ID looked unconvincing, he would ask the person what the number was. If they knew it, he wouldn’t accept it, on the grounds that “nobody knows their license number. If they’ve memorized it, it’s because they’re trying too hard to be convincing.”.
I know mine, because I’m constantly having to list it on W2s. Does anyone else? I mean, I understand what he means: another method of weeding out pretenders is asking their name and dismissing them if they include the middle name. But knowing one’s driver’s license # is, IMO, like knowing one’s car license # or SS#. Anyone here know theirs?
*I know now, of course, that Texas is way more strict, so that just possessing someone else’s ID, or tampering with your own is a crime. No argument there, just saying that California makes it a moot point: false ID is no good to you if no one accepts it.
I know my drivers license number, my SSN, my checking account number, the license plate numbers of several family members and friends, phone numbers of people I knew in elementary school, and can fake my way through a couple of my credit card numbers.
I know mine but that’s mostly because it’s absurdly easy. It’s just three different numbers repeated.
People have accused me of having a fake I.D. because of that. They think I look under 21 so they check the I.D. that proves I’m well over it and they see the number and think it’s fake. Of course, I have to explain time and time again that if I was going to go through all the trouble to make a fake I.D. for myself (a)I would probably make myself just barely over 21 instead of several years older and (b)I wouldn’t have given myself an absurdly easy–and noticeable–license number.
Is there a way to get a new, different license number?
Is your friend a bouncer or a caricature of Sherlock Holmes? I memorized mine without consciously trying to from having to write it on checks all the time. It’s also good to know it in case you get pulled over and don’t have your driver’s license on you.
As for Texas being way more strict, not in my experience. Everybody here I talked to found it highly unusual that the police were called because somebody tried to pass a fake ID… whenever I or anyone I know got caught doing it, they just took away the fake ID. Sometimes they’d just laugh and say “no way.”
I knew my Tennessee number-the one that I requested not be the same as my SSN. I knew my Mississippi number. I do not know the number of the Georgia one, and I’ve been here for a year and a half. Actually, I can still spout off the TN or MS ones. All I know about the GA one is that I think it starts with 6.
I quit writing a lot of checks to grocery stores and stuff once I moved here, and that’s why I knew the otheres. Now, I pay cash or use the check card, and no one asks for the license with those.
I know my driver’s license number and my husbands as well.
Plus my bank account numbers all members of my immediate family’s SS#'s (husband and 4 children) I can eerily remember phone numbers that I have heard and never dialed. And I from working at an auto dealership 7 years ago I still remember numbers for several of the surrounding dealerships.
I’m pretty sure my FL DL# is mine for life. I left in '97, returned last year, having held a VA DL for the interim, and my number remained unchanged. All FL licenses incorporate the holder’s birth year in the number, and my husband and I have the same first 4 characters - I think those are linked to the last name.
I know my driver’s license number. And my SS#. And the license plates of my current vehicles, my old motorcycles, and a couple of the other cars I’ve owned. And the registration of the airplanes dad used to have, and the registration of the helicopters I fly. I used to know one of my credit card numbers, but the credit union changed it after someone got ahold of customers’ card numbers. That one “saved” me in New Orleans once. I wanted to pay for dinner for my friends, but I’d left my billfold at my friends’ house. I just rattled off the number to the cashier and it was okay.
I know mine, but I’m a little obsessive-compulsive.
Fact of the matter is, when I moved to N.C. from S.C. and was faced with the prospect of having to learn a new driver’s license number after (counts on fingers) about 8 years with my old one, I decided the only way to do it was to make it fun. So I made a song out of it.
I do not know my DL#, but I don’t exactly look at my license much. I don’t write checks (use the debit card), and I’ve never been ticketed, so I’ve never needed it for a traffic violation. I know my license plate #, and all my family and friend’s plates. I don’t understand how you can not know what your LP# is…you see it every single time you go to your car! Knowing it makes it a lot easier if you have a common car and can differentiate yours from the other 3 identical cars in the parking lot by looking at the plate. Plus, how else would you know who’s car left their lights on?
Yep, I know my DL number. It’s a guy thing. . .it’s stored in the same brain cell as the VIN and license number of my first car.
Until I got to college I couldn’t remember my SSN but once I got there I had to rattle it off so damn many times in the registrar’s office that it stuck.
Knowing my SSN is a big help, but I can’t say that having my driver’s license number burned into my brain has ever saved my bacon. Maybe one day Regis will ask me and I’ll win the million bucks but I kind of doubt it.
Well, in this state, it’s first 5 letters of your last name, first initial, middle initial, 100-year of birth, a random number, a letter representing month of birth, and a letter or number representing date of birth.
Anyway, I do know mine. Here - I’d wonder much, much more about anyone who didn’t at least know how theirs began.
