to want (cheap, optional) ID cards?

[WordsAreNoUseAtAll]

I can't drive for medical reasons, and the last time I went abroad I was young enough to be on my parent's passports. So I have no photo ID.

This is getting annoying now - eg I can't rent a carpet cleaner without FIL signing the forms. It is like being a child. But a passport is SO expensive.

YANBU

My passport is out of date and I still have the old paper DL so I'd be fecked if I needed photo id.

Can't you get one of those ID cards you use to buy booze with if you look under 21? Don't think they cost much.

Are you actually barred from applying for a provisional licence -if you declare your medical conditions?

My girlfriend applied for a provisional licence, with no intention of learning, simply as it was the cheapest way to get photo ID.

[Whispers] as not wanting to learn to drive is bizarrely considered the sin of all sins on MN.

The age cards are just for age- they don't prove enough for carpet cleaner companies

I have actually got a provisional licence, but it is ten years out of date, has a different name and address on and I look nothing like the picture. Plus I have lost it about three houses ago. But it is the principle of the thing.

It's like there is no mechanism for taking part in much of life if you don't drive or go on foreign holidays.

www.citizencard.com/

The problem is you can't have a cheap ID that really means anything, Driving and Passports are just about as low as you can get, so anything else is going to cost just as much. So whilst it would be nice, it's unreasonable unfortunately, it would either be so cheap that anyone could just get one without enough checks so people would soon stop accepting it as ID, or cost more than the passport/driving licence as it would require the same checks but not have the economies of scale for those.

ID cards would be just as expensive as you need the same security and anti-forgery devices that you would need on a passport.

The only way you'd get them cheap if there was a massive government subsidy on them to force everyone to have one. That didn't appear to go down brilliantly last time.

Why on earth wouldn't you have a passport though? And why on earth don't you drive?

And yes, YABU to want to enforce yet another layer of suveillance on law biding citizens when a passport/driving licence is all anyone needs in day to day life, just because you have neither.

I had to carry an ID card when I lived in Japan. Didn't feel oppressed at all. I do think they should make it obligatory to have passport though (and subsidise costs for low earners if necessary)

callisto Read the first post again.

WordsAreNoUseAtAll I rented a Rug Doctor from Johnsons Dry Cleaners, and they didn't need a passport or driving licence.

I think I brought along a debit card, some money, and a couple of utility bills.

callisto. eh? in the OP she says "I can't drive for medical reasons."

And she doesn't have a passport because she hasn't been abroad for years and she can't find the money to get one.

And she quite clearly said "cheap OPTIONAL ID cards"

Nothing anywhere about forcing anyone else to do anything.

callisto do you think you might have come across as a bit hectoring and presumptous in tour previous post?

Believe it or not some of us can't afford cars or holidays abroad!

You can get them already. They are proof of age cards but double as ID. I have one

www.pass-scheme.org.uk/

callisto have my very first

Callisto, I'll be one of the first to be against compulsory ID cards but why stop other people having optional ones if they wished?