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NY State Getting Retro Black-And-White Driver's License Photos
By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 17, 2013
Modified Mar 17, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 17, 2013
Modified Mar 17, 2013
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New York state has come up with a new way to combat counterfeit licenses: black-and-white photos. Starting in July, New Yorkers who need new licenses will get a hard plastic card with monochromatic photos—that's right, your face will pop up multiple times on the new cards. The only way they could make them look any cooler is if they automatically photoshopped a cigarette dangling out of the driver's mouth, and switched the face with Camus.
In throwing out the bendable color cards, New York is following in the footsteps of Virgina, who adopted the new license style in 2009. Pam Goheen, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, told the Times that the department had not seen a “credible” forgery of a Virginia license since, adding that those who tried had failed miserably. “They’re really awful,” she noted. Forgers are deterred because the new licenses are laser engraved on rigid polycarbonate, a hard material that makes a "sound like a compact disc when dropped."
The NY Times has a wonderful little feature on the evolution of the driver's license you can see here. And if the lady in the above photo looks at all familiar to you, she should: Jason Feifer noticed as much, and started a Tumblr dedicated to following the well-traveled life of "mediocre stock photography."
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black and white
drivers licenses
identification
photo
retro
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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