July 21, 2008
By Brigid Schulte
Consider the driver's license. That unimpeachable document you show to enter government buildings, get on a plane or go anywhere sensitive in this post-9/11 world. It's the cornerstone of our security these days, used to weed out the dangerous terrorist from the benign traveler. It establishes that you are YOU and not some impostor.
Because everything's true on a government-issued ID, right?
Name? Check. Address? Check. Birth date? Check. Sex? Check.
Weight? ...
Yeah, right.
Let's face it, most women in America lie about their weight on their driver's licenses.
There are blogs, Internet mailing lists and entire Web sites devoted to the topic, like the one on CalorieCounts.com titled "Want to get down to driver's license weight lol."
One contributor named Lori explained her situation this way: "I did not lie on my license at the time I had the picture taken. But here in GA we can renew by mail for 10 years. At renewal time, I was at my highest weight which was 117 lbs more than my license."
I think I've lied on every driver's license application since I was 16 and never thought twice about it. So when I went to renew my Virginia driver's license not long ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my fictitious weight was nowhere to be seen on the face of my shiny new license.
Had Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles finally come to the sad realization that women are big fat liars about their weight and that it was time to end the useless charade? Not exactly.
"Uh, we discontinued showing weight on driver's licenses in 1985," said Pam Goheen, Virginia DMV director of communications. It was all part of a license redesign, she said. There wasn't enough space for all the usual physical identifiers, so they left out weight, eye and hair color.
Virginia still asks for weight, it just doesn't show it anymore. It's in the squiggly black lines of the bar code on the back of my license now, which can be read only by a little scanner in the car of the state trooper or police officer who pulls me over and runs my license through the Virginia Criminal Information Network.
"It is to provide additional information for law enforcement and to assist in the prevention of fraud," Goheen said.
So a law enforcement officer with a keen eye could still figure out I'd lied about my weight?
"I would remind everyone that the application to apply for or renew a driver's license or identification must be signed by penalty of perjury so the information presented is correct," she said. "It's a Class 2 misdemeanor to knowingly make a false statement on a driver's license."
Can you imagine what would happen if they started enforcing those perjury penalties?
"Out of the car, ma'am. Step on this scale nice and easy now.")
So why is weight enshrined on so many driver's licenses? Why are state motor vehicle departments mindlessly promoting such widespread mendacity? I decided to investigate.
First, I called Jason King, spokesman for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, who said he had no idea why states ask for weight.
He promised to check into it. While I waited, I wondered if other countries were as weight-conscious as we. I Googled "International Driver's License" and called the first listing that popped up, Vimar International in Brooklyn, N.Y., and spoke to Helena Kairsa.
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