Captured with eyelids at half-mast, hair askew, your driver’s license photo can haunt you through four years of snickering bar bouncers, incredulous store clerks and squinting state troopers.
But there is good news for the photophobic in some states: a computer-imaging system used to issue driver’s license pictures that permits you to pick your picture.
Sadly, you still can’t supply your own 8-by-10 glamor glossy. But the Image Capture system in use in New York, South Carolina and Florida does allow you to preview the picture taken before it is slapped on your license.
If you can’t live with it, you can have your picture taken again — and again — and again, until you are satisfied or the photographer’s patience wears out, whichever comes first.
“It depends on how busy (the offices) are,” says Susan Nelson, a department of motor vehicles representative in Albany, N.Y., who speaks from experience. “I had mine taken four times.”
One caveat: You cannot compare all the shots taken and make your selection. Only the most recent shot is available to use.
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One New York City resident called his second take “the lesser of two evils.”
Illinois residents, however, can bury any hope of picture-improved vanity ID’s, at least for now.
“I don’t understand what’s to be gained by letting people choose their picture,” says Dave Urbanek, press secretary to Secretary of State George Ryan. “In busier facilities it would just slow down the process.”