Frankly, I ignored this rule (for the reason you give), and kept my card in a safe place. I never had a problem. In almost 20 years of being a Permanent Resident I was never once in a situation where I unexpectedly had to produce my Green Card. When I needed photo ID, I used my driver’s license. (Well, once, before I was Permanent Resident, or even had a US driver’s license, I used my British passport as ID to buy beer. The convenience store clerk was very unhappy that it was not a driver’s license, but I eventually talked him round. I was in my 30s at the time. I guess non-drivers are not supposed to drink. :rolleyes:)
Indeed - there are extensive networks of CCTV cameras in many/most city centres, but their purpose is just to make law enforcement more effective - for crimes such as pickpocketing, alcohol-related late-night violence, and pursuit of shoplifters etc, a CCTV operator directing a fast-response ground unit can be more effective than dozens of patrol/beat officers alone.
(It also makes it safer for the responding officers, as they will often have advance warning of the type of hazards present in the situation they are responding to - which they wouldn’t if they were just walking into it firsthand)
Yep, and it works in my experience. Two guys tried to steal my bag a few years back, but I managed to fight them off and they ran away. It all happened so fast I couldn’t remember exactly what they looked like. Well, the whole thing was on CCTV and I got a letter a few months (or so) later saying they were going to be doing community service.
I personally always have my driver’s licence and my student card with me, but apart from my student card at university, I’ve never had to use my driver’s licence as ID. The same was true when I lived in Australia, I don’t recall ever having a need for it.
My driving licence is one of the old green ones, and I feel no need to upgrade it. Rarely will I get asked for photo ID anywhere, perhaps if I was doing work inside a bank.
I’m not sure how much different the Driver Vehicle Licensing agency in NI is compared to that in GB, but there’s a note on my license that both card and paper must be produced together.
Again, I’m not sure what it’s like across the water, but I was told our license expiry date was a side effect of the troubles, requiring everyone to keep their details up to date more often. Is there an expiry date on GB licenses?
It expires when you are seventy, as I recall, so presumably you would get one in the new format if you renewed it.
I hate it to but even though the chances of me being asked to produce it are very very very small I am terrified of that one time where I am asked for it and don’t have it.
And yet I am home right now in the UK for Christmas and won’t think twice about leaving the house with no ID on me what so ever. Different worlds.
In the US non-drivers who wish to drink are supposed to go to the DMV for a non-driver photo ID. They look much like a driver’s license but of course don’t allow you to drive. This is the explanation of that for my state.
It’s called sarcasm.
Wasn’t there a big brou-ha-ha a few years back about a proposed plan to issue mandatory photo IDs to all Brits? That didn’t pan out, from what I recall.
If you have the photo ID it has to be renewed every 10 years or if you change address. All this requires is a new photo. Recently I heard about proposals to get rid of the paper part as well as getting rid of tax discs.
Me too. I keep meaning to update to a photo one, but never get round to it. Never had any problems with the old-style one.
The only photo ID I have on me is my work ID pass and my train season ticket, so on non-working days I don’t have any. (I certainly don’t carry my passport around with me.) Can’t see why I would ever need it, either.
It’s an affront to the English to carry an ID. I believe during the WW2 there were some sort of ID cards.
An Englishmans word is his bond my good man.
It’s been mentioned upthread. There was a general outcry about it and it was dropped by the current government.
Why would you think that? We don’t carry ID, our police don’t routinely carry guns, we can all drink at 18, we don’t need NHS ID to register with or visit a doctor, there’s plenty of ways we are less regulated than the US.
Last time a cashier in a supermarket asked me for ID when I was buying wine, I just laughed and asked if she’d like to count my grey hairs.
Every country has its different regulations. Presumably you only hear about the stuff that makes our country sound more draconian than yours.
[QUOTE=Smeghead]
That didn’t pan out, from what I recall.
[/QUOTE]
No, it did not.
It was never clear what exactly it was going to be for.
IIRC it was going to involve biometrics, did we ever hear how this would work?
We were going to have to pay for it our selves, frack that.
[quote=“SanVito, post:35, topic:644120”]
we can all drink at 18,
[QUOTE]
and don’t need to hide it in paper bags.
[quote=“Bam_Boo_Gut, post:37, topic:644120”]
[quote=“SanVito, post:35, topic:644120”]
we can all drink at 18,
Well, unless you’re in a rare non-drinking zone.
Which reminds me of being on Brighton Beach once - a designated no public drinking zone thanks to all the students and stag do’s they attract down there. I didn’t realise it was such a zone and was happily enjoying a bottle of wine with my SO.
A policeman on the beach approached a gang of youths near us who were drinking beer. He took the beer off them and poured it away. Then he approached us (nice 30-somethings).
“What’s that you’re drinking?”
“Sauvignon Blanc”
“Nice choice, enjoy!”
And he left us to it 
Even older than my one on pink paper! My licence has been through the wash a few times, is held together with old brittle sellotape and I’m not in any rush to change it. I did go and get a photo International Drivers Permit from the Post Office before I went to the US on my hols though, to hopefully avoid trouble if I got pulled over whilst driving.
My Mum has a paper licence too, no passport, and despite phoning her bank last week to see if she could withdraw money from an ISA, she was turned away from the counter and told she needed the photo ID AND 2 utility bills. She has pointed out that all her utilities are paid for online now. Who knows if she will get her cash out!
Tied in to the people who keep the databases for loyalty cards like Nectar etc… scary amounts of info, all easily accessible in one place.
Ha, not so rare, depending on where you are. Friends and I were having a picnic in Belfast once in a little park area at the end of our (private) street. Signposted no drinking and we were not drinking. Mostly. There weren’t any bottles around anyway, which was probably a first for that patch of grass because at any given time you could collect at least 5 empty bottles of Buckfast and another 6 empty Strongbow bottles from the area, all regularly left by herds of drunk strangers who did not live on that street but who certainly enjoyed having several drinks under that no drinking sign. But a security guard came round and gave us a lecture about drinking. Hmph.
Belfast is full of those areas around the universities. Manchester has plenty of them too.
And with the national ID thing – the previous government started off handing them out to foreigners. The system was pretty far along in doling them out to people who’d renewed their visa in-country; I have friends with them. I was always a bit surprised that they would even consider trying to roll them out to citizens because of the biometrics stuff, especially since everyone I knew seemed to hold a passport already.