Alabama Tastes the real ID Future ...

Alabama decided to start conforming to one part of the real ID regulations: your driver's license name must have the exact same name as your Social Security Card. They notified people whose names differed that they had to come to one of seven cities and pay a whopping $18 for a new license. This article in the Tuscaloosa News covered the story. We quote:

Nadine Chambers, a 70-year-old Cullman resident who got one of the letters, said changes were needed. "It was just chaos," she said in a phone interview Thursday.

She said she went to a driver's license exam office for three days and stood in line. The first two days she gave up because of the lines, but the third day she got a new license after waiting 2 1/2 hours.

"When they asked for $18, I liked to have hit the ceiling," she said.

Alabama stopped this program after sending out the first 65,000 letters. I'd say they were premature, since all these people will (again) need a new license when Real ID licenses are available. But the new licenses may force every person in the state to go to those seven offices, and they'll be paying a lot more than $18! That's the future for Real ID: Chaos.