In Which Jason Attempts to Get a Straight Answer Out of the Illinois Department of Motor VehiclesThe setting: my driver's license is about to expire. They sent me a form to get a renewal sticker, but seeing how I'm a few inches taller than I was when I got my last one (I'm a late bloomer), and also since my old license was one of the last of the old-style laminated ones (and bouncers were already starting to treat it as suspect), and also since you're supposed to let them know within ten days when you move (and the address they had for me was now four years out of date), I figured I'd just go in and get a new one. Upon entering the DMV, I was struck, as always, by one overwhelming impression. I don't know if it's like this in other states, but in Illinois, they want to make damn sure you know the name and face of the Secretary of State (presently Jesse White). I counted no less than four giant posters of his face, flashing his somehow desperate-looking smile, beaming down at us from the walls and assuring us that the government loves us and is here to help us. The Secretary of State is the undisputed lord and master of all things DMV-related. His name is attached to every single piece of paper you could possibly find there. His name is on the sign outside. His name is on the sign out on the road that directs people to the DMV. The hollow dispirited employees would gladly lay down their empty lives for Jesse White (and of course donate their organs afterward), and you should too. Jesse White is watching. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, the recently-jacked-up registration fee is frugal. 
But the process of actually going to the DMV and getting my new license was relatively painless. The only snag came when the guy behind the counter asked if I had any ID that showed my new address. Well... no, actually, that's what I'm trying to get here. Fortunately, he accepted my checkbook as ID for that purpose, so if you ever need to get a license that shows a fraudulent address, presumably you can figure out what to do. But you didn't hear it from me. But I digress. So after standing in a few lines, reading a few letters off an eye chart, getting my picture taken, and paying ten dollars for a card that cost them maybe six cents to make, I had a brand-spanking-new license in my hand. And my picture actually isn't half-bad this time around. So I look it over just to make sure everything's correct. On the front, everything's spelled correctly, they've got all my various dates and statistics correct, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see they let me keep my social security number unlisted. On the back is the thing you fill out to be an organ donor, and a large block that's machine readable - an area of white and black spots similar to what you often see on shipping labels. These little spots can hold a lot of information (when I got home I counted and multiplied and came up with a figure of 3.75 kilobits for the one on my drivers license), and I realized I had no idea what information was contained therein, much less if it was accurate. It's far too big to be a simple ID number. Since I'd already stepped away from the counter and didn't relish the thought of waiting in line again just to ask a question I really doubted these drones knew the answer to, I figured I'd try calling the Secretary of State's office. Jesse White knows all. He is truly the king of kings. So I went home, found and called the 800 number, and was told the approximate wait time would be thirty minutes. With a hearty "screw that!" I hung up. While I do care about you, my readers, sitting out there hungrily anticipating my next morsel of humor, I don't care about you that much. Resolving to call again at what was likely to be an off-peak time, I put the matter off. So I had time to stew about it. Now that I'd thought about it, I couldn't get the question out of my head - what was stored in that block? An encoded version of my driving record? There's not terribly much to it. Sure, I got a speeding ticket a few years back, but I jumped through the hoops to get it taken off my record, which consisted of spending an evening watching inane films of people flying through windshields. (I brought popcorn. Really.) So what would they put in the remaining space? Maybe it's a warning to the police that I know about Operation Frosty Melon Boy? Could it be my permanent school record that the principal said would haunt me for the rest of my life? My criminal record (which basically consists of that speeding ticket)? Maybe they screwed up and listed someone else's criminal record. Maybe the next time I get pulled over I'll be arrested for twenty-six murders! Or, it could be something else. The data block in question is not quite half a kilobyte long. That's enough for, say, a hundred or so words of English text. Perhaps they just wanted to include that Ann Landers 'Please God, I'm Only 17' thing on everyone's license, and they had to compress it to binary to get it to fit. Or perhaps it's just a brief description by the guy at the DMV. (They do seem to do a lot of typing for the amount of information that's handled.) Mine probably reads "Wise-ass. Will probably go home and write a web page that makes fun of us. I doubt if he even believes in Our Lord Jesse White. Use caution." It got to be the middle of Saturday afternoon, a time when I figured that all the people with lives (the set of people often defined as "people who are not me") are thinking about anything but the DMV, and sure enough, I only sat on hold for about three minutes. And then... the entire premise on which the humor of this story was based got shot to hell when the girl on the other end of the phone gave me a straight answer. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, all primed to tackle a large, wasteful bureaucracy in the name of humor and freedom of information, and then the large, wasteful bureaucracy goes and ruins it by actually giving me the information I want! In a timely fashion, no less! The sheer nerve! Anyway, it turns out that the data on the back of the license is just a machine-readable redux of all the information on the front. Basically, it's there so that cops can pull your info up on their screen without even having to type in an ID number. While I'm always pleased to see modern technology making it so our boys in blue literally don't have to lift a finger, I have to admit I almost wish one of my horrible notions was true. Of course, maybe it is. Maybe they have gotten to all the phone-answerer-people and just told them to tell us this simple little cover story, when in fact it's a horrible plot! The information I'm carrying on my own drivers license is part of a scheme to destroy Secretary of State Jesse White from within his own department! Oh, the horror! How do I know that the nice lady who took my ten dollar fee isn't part of the conspiracy? Maybe my check never made it to the state's coffers; maybe it's funding the insurgents right now! I'm considering altering the pattern on my license with a magic marker. That would be sure to foil their evil schemes. It might also make me come up on the police screen as Jaso3j*f{nW 9uDm@ Tg(2, but that's just an added bonus. Although the girl I talked to even gave me a phone number I could call for more information, I'm not going to. It would just shoot down what remains of the mystery. Besides, the number's in the state capital, which is long distance from here, and like I said, I don't care about you readers that much. Contact author Back to main page Back to Features |