You Can Now Get An 8 Year OK Drivers License

I don't know about you, but when I first started driving, an Oklahoma drivers license was printed on paper and then sealed with in a lamination plastic that kept it pretty pristine for a few months. It never failed, after a while, just from sitting in your wallet, the corners of that laminate would start to separate and the integrity of your license would be compromised.

I know it sounds like something that wouldn't be aggravating, but when those corners peeled, people stopped trusting it. You'd flash your ID at the store to purchase something age-regulated, and even though it was 100% real, the cashier would almost always refuse to sell you your wares under the assumption it was fake. All the same, Oklahoma ID's were so easy to fake around the turn of the century that it was all they could do to avoid the hefty tickets from the entrapment-happy ABLE Commission.

It wasn't but a few years into the new millennium that this state switched everything over to the printed plastic type modern license. With new technology came a big new price, and all of a sudden a license then cost about a days wages. Fortunately, my local tag agent in that small Northern Oklahoma town offered two price options. One was the four year full price license, and the other was a cheaper two year offering so you could go through the dance twice as often. Those days are back as you now have a choice in how long you have your license.

Over the weekend, the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety and Oklahoma Highway Patrol made the announcement that the state will now offer citizens a regular four year drivers license, or one good for the next eight years. Seeing how well the OK DPS and most tag agencies treat the general traveling public, seeing them half as often is a great thing for everyone in the state. Of course, it's also going to be a harder challenge to remember when your current license expires, but you can always set a reminder on your Google calendar. It's not like that company is going anywhere in the next hundred years.