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Okay I’ll respond here and say: my drivers license or any of my “documents” would be among the last things I would think to grab. I’d want:
Kids/wife/debit card
Hardware authenticators (irreplaceable)
Laptop
Gun
“Survival” stuff like a fishing rod and a water filter and some lighters.
I realize this makes me very stupid, and this event has made me reevaluate my thoughts. For instance if I lost ALL of my “documents”, could I reconstruct them? My intuition says: yes, easily. Just “steal” my own identity. I have my DL# and SSN memorized. I know my full name, DOB, all of my addresses, employment history, etc.
What would it actually take, I wonder?
My debit card is in my wallet besides my license— is your’s in a separate container?
Yes it’s in the glovebox in my car. Home Depot is the only place I go that doesn’t take Apple Pay, so I keep it in there in case I go to Home Depot.
I guess if it was explicitly a driving license I would keep that in there as well, but it seems there are lots of other, non driving related things I need it for (flying, for instance) so it lives in the house.
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What are hardware authenticators?
It’s a hardware 2 factor authentication device.
So like when you log in to a service, instead of texting me, I have to insert/read something from a little piece of hardware.
Oh like a Digipass, gotcha.
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I'd consider my credit+debit+cash to be urgent and my driver's license to be replaceable ... but in effect that means I'd definitely have ID, since it's all in the same wallet.
I feel like the "I don't know anybody voting for Nixon" lady, but I don't think I know any adult who doesn't carry ID habitually. I guess my wife sometimes leaves her ID and cards at home when I'm driving, but even then it's less often than not.
Things are probably different in cities with good mass transit, but does that describe any of the ones flooding?
We now have recognised digital drivers' licenses on your phone, but to be honest I wasn't carrying one before then anyway. A wallet is just one more thing to carry, everything is on the phone. An ID isn't necessary to fly domestically here either, so it's easily left at home as well. I'd currently need to use cash maybe once every two years.
In my state of Washington in the last legislative session we allocated $150,000 to study the idea of digital driver’s licenses. The study is due at the end of this year. Maybe in the upcoming session we can get a bill passed to implement them and then in another year, minimum, they can roll out.
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And you’d be a fool to use it. Are you planning on handing your unlocked phone to a cop?
If it wasn't clear, I don't live in a country with as adversarial a relationship with the cops as the US, but I have a shortcut to pin the app on open, kiosk mode. I've never had to use it in the 2 ish years it's been available but I understand the ID verification flow doesn't require a phone to be handed over, just a QR code displayed and scanned.
You have a lot of trust in the kiosk mode. I don’t know where you are, but I see the relevant difference as the fact that US cops and courts cannot compel you to unlock your phone, whereas in most of the rest of the world they can.
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I haven’t brought my drivers license with me for any reason other than flying in…years.
My car unlocks with my phone, which also has apply pay. I don’t carry a wallet with me, and I don’t carry house keys with me either. My house uses electronic locks, and I’m very competent with a lock pick (and can improvise one very quickly) in the event that that fails.
Usually when we fly finding IDs is a task on our to do list.
On the one hand I've always heard you have 24 hours to produce your license (no idea if that's true). On the other hand....what do you do if your phone gets lost, stolen, or broken?
My phone crashed in a major city in another state on me once and that was bad enough with my wallet and keys and someone with me.
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So hypothetically, what happens if you get stopped by Police and they ask to see your license? Or is that not a thing that they ask for where you live?
I’ve never been stopped by the police. But if I was I’d give them my DL# and they would presumably just look it up on their computer in their car.
Depending on local policy (and the mood of the cop) you might get forced to show up in court over that. At least I know that's theoretically supposed to happen where I live (but probably rarely gets applied unless you're violating some other law simultaneously since it's a huge waste of time both for you and for the government).
I guess I just don’t care. If they make me show up to court because I didn’t have the little plastic thing, and instead just had them look it up, that’s funny to me.
Go on the clown ride at the clown show to get scolded by clowns for not having my clown department issued clown card with me. Nothing could be funnier to me.
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I could be wrong, but I feel like an officer would probably look you up with the number, but then chide you with a "you need to carry your license when you drive" before he sent you on your way.
@Stellula Having had this experience I was sent on my way with a summons to appear and produce the license in court.
Upon appearing with my license the case was dismissed but I was admonished for not having my license while driving.
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Yeah that’s exactly what I assume would happen.
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To weigh in somewhat in between you and /u/roystgnr, I have my license with me 100% of the time when I leave the house, but also have repeatedly had a "why in the world do you not have your license?" conversation where my wife has been denied alcohol for lack of ID. So, I am well aware that this is way above lizard man constant levels, but am also absolutely baffled at what the upside is to not just having your ID in your wallet.
A surprising amount of women's clothing does not come with pockets of sufficient size to store anything like a wallet, so they need to pack necessities manually before every trip based on need and available storage. This could be anything ranging from a handbag to the minimally-sized pocket of a tight-fitting piece of pants that might at most fit a few loose cards, which encourages keeping the ID card as a loose item to be tracked and brought explicitly.
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Realistically, I wouldn't expect even something as dire as the current North Carolina situation to happen in literally an hour. If you live in a hurricane state, you should have some sort of reasonable plan laid out and be ready to execute in the event that something happens. This is probably good advice in general but becomes more important if you're somewhere that has a non-trivial probability of your house just being destroyed. If I lived in such a state, my go bag would include a few documents - it's not like these chew up much space or weight. Currently, I just always keep my passport in the backpack that I travel with, so that would be an automatic one without needing to think about it any further than chucking a few other things in and bugging out. Otherwise, top priorities would vary based on what the situation is. Things that I would pretty much always bring:
Imperfect, but doesn't weigh much, is enough calories to survive for a few days even with heavy movement, includes self-defense, some warmth, and includes money and ID restoration.
Most of these people do not live in places where hurricanes regularly cause damage, and many people were not expecting flooding until it was window-high.
https://x.com/smokiesvol/status/1840077470931832933
https://x.com/Rex_Williams/status/1840467637467574395
Holy shit, those videos almost look like the effects of landslides rather than a hurricane.
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Not thinking to grab your social security card and birth certificate I fully understand, but how would you possibly leave behind your driver’s license? Do you not keep it in your wallet, phone case, car, or some other similar place? I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time I left home without my driver’s license, since it never leaves my wallet.
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