So I stopped by the Illinois Secretary of State‘s (aka the Department of Motor Vehicles) office yesterday afternoon, because I’m a masochist or something. Actually, it’s because Dan’s car still has North Carolina license plates, and they expire at the end of the month. So I went in to find the place blissfully uncrowded. I got the forms needed and started to fill them out, until I got to the line: FILL IN YOUR IL DRIVERS LICENSE NUMBER. Um, whoops. See, I’ve never quite gotten around to getting an Illinois driver’s license, even though I’ve been here for about a year. Heh. My bad.
Well, the Drivers License office was right next door, so I figured what the heck? I opened the door and was shocked to see that it, too was uncrowded. I was directed to a large, unsmiling man who asked me what I wanted and what documentation I had. I handed him the bundle of papers I had, he looked through it and said, “Where’s your Social Security card?” Aw, crap. I haven’t seen my Social Security card in more than five years. And if it’s still around, it’s somewhere in our storage locker – good luck.
So now it looks like I need to come in a early one day next week and leave by 2:30 PM so I can get to the Social Security office in Waukegan before they close at 4 PM. There’s an office right near us in Chicago, on Lawrence between Western and Damen, but it too closes at 4 PM. And me with a 40-60 minute commute to get there? Yeah, I’ll go to Waukegan. And theoretically all of this needs to get done by the end of the month. Um, yeah. We’ll see.
All they are requiring is the SS card? In Missouri now, you have to show your birth certificate or passport or something to prove that you’re a legal citizen of the US, a SS card or medicare card to prove you are who you are, and a utility bill to prove you actually live where you say you do.
All so terrorist can’t licenses *chuckles*
Oh, they wanted all of that too. And I had all of that with me. But I was told that without the SS card, I wasn’t going anywhere. Lovely.
http://www.sos.state.il.us/departments/drivers/drivers_license/acceptable_id.html
Enjoy the clusterfuck 😉
Because I am a lazy bastard, my NC plates are expired. But, to my credit, I’m having to wait for my new SS Card to come in since I lost mine years back 😛
And of course the end result is that they just drive without licenses.
I swear at least a fourth of the drivers here are illegal aliens with no license and no insurance. But they do a lot or driving, some of it pretty reckless.
thats one thing I dont miss about Missouri
Strange…I’ve never been asked for the CARD itself. And I’d assume that the majority of people have no idea where their card is; they certainly warn people against carrying it on their person.
Bssides….all it is is an easily-forged card with a name and a number. Can’t they deal with some other piece of ID?
I wish they could. No, he was insistent (in that unique, government-worker manner of insisting, where it’s clear that you might have better luck arguing with a wall) that I had to have my SS card.
Well, silly, you’re in Illinois! You know there are two ways to deal with this…
1) hand the guy a 50
2) leave the building, let him take his 3-hour lunch break and close the facility 30 minutes early, then come back on Monday and hand the guy a 50
Well, nuts. I should have hit the ATM, then gone back and asked for “Individual A” 🙂
Actually, these apparently are acceptable forms of ID for proof of Social Security Number:
* Illinois Drivers License Record (my five-year-old record is apparently too old)
* Illinois Identification Card Record
* Military Service Record-DD214
* Social Security Award Letter (Primary Beneficiary Only)
* Social Security Card-Issued by Social Security Administration
* U.S Military Drivers License-US
* U.S.Military Identification
And that’s it. Bleah.
Is the Social Security Award letter that thing they send out once a year telling you your “estimated” benefits?
I find it really ironic that it says right on a social (in)security card “not to be used for purposes of identification”…
I’ve been to the Waukegan office… I wish you a safe journey.
What license?
I still have a California license. My excuse is California is far more aggressive citing people for having a car registered in California with no California license. As I still have a car registered in CA, I’ve kept the matching license. As an added bonus, it’s good up to 26,000# (for the big truck), while an IL license is only good to 16,000#.
I just leave the ‘IL license number’ blank on any documentation I ever get from the IL SOS department. Both my Saturn and the C-60 (er, recreational vehicle) are registered in IL.
Re: What license?
I could be wrong, but I thought the 26,000# vehicle weight limit was a Federal DOT regulation. (?)
KO <– (Son of a semi-retired professional truck driver.)
Double check that. I’m not sure you need your social security card to get a driver’s license. They’ve sure never asked me for mine.