Proposed California law would let you choose your driver’s license photo

Do you hate your driver’s license photo? Of course you do! They are always awful. But what do you expect with a cheap camera, bad lighting, and your resting bitch face that comes about after a few hours spent in DMV hell. But, now that all might be changing thanks to a proposed bill by a California lawmaker that would let you take multiple pics and choose the one you want…for a price.

The bill is was introduced by State Senator Josh Newman of Fullerton, a democrat, who seems to have spent way to much time thinking about this.

“Recall your last experience going to the DMV,” Newman told Capital Public Radio. “You finally get to that point in line where they snap your picture and you might or might not be ready for it and they might or might not show it to you before you get it. But you get what you get. So many of us get photos that aren’t particularly flattering and you have no choice these days but to show that photo to everybody.”

Under the proposal, people would be charged extra money in order to take additional photos.  Revenue from those fees would pay for a Driver Education and Training Fund.

Newman, who says the revenue for driver training is needed after almost every public school in the state has eliminated driver’s ed in their curriculum, would give people two options:

“One is that if you paid extra at the DMV, you could get another picture taken, or subsequent pictures taken, until you got one you that you thought you could live with,” says Newman. “Or the second path is, as with passport photos, you could go to a photographer, who would be accredited by the DMV, and would use the spec provided and you could get a picture that suited your preference as to how you would be presented.”

It seems like a lot of work for nothing, you’re right.  But, just imagine how delighted the occasional bar doorman, cop, bank teller, or hotel front desk worker will be during those three seconds they look at it.