DMV wants black-and-white mugshots

The people at DMV want to go farther back to the future.

First came news of their plan to start delivering your new driver's license by mail. That hasn't happened since 1968, when local DMV offices installed their first Polaroid photo-ID machines and began cranking out fresh plastic driver's licenses and putting them into your hand before you walked out the door.

Now DMV wants to stop printing your driver's license mugshot in color. If the legislature says it's OK, DMV says it may start producing driver's licenses with black-and-white mugs.

Sen. Clark Jenkins, sponsor of a bill to make this OK, says the change would promote security -- the b/w image is engraved on the license card, making it harder to alter it -- and save money -- it's cheaper to do it this way. DMV says it would still have your image on file in color.

Meanwhile, Jenkins' bill also would allow DMV to deliver licenses to post office boxes for thousands of North Carolinians who do not receive home delivery from the U.S. Postal Service.