Bendable driver's license? WTF?

May 27, 2007 9:49 AM

Why are New York driver's licenses made from a flexible material? And what is it?

I'm looking at my sister's NY driver's license. It's made from this flexible, soft plastic-y material. It looks like vinyl maybe. My sister said it looked "cheap" and it kind of does, but it doesn't seem like a cost saving measure to me. What's the deal?

posted by delmoi to Technology (8 answers total)

I think it's supposed to be difficult to replicate. When I've gotten carded for things, people have bent it and felt it to see if it's authentic. I don't know what the material is, though.
posted by danb at 9:52 AM on May 27, 2007

Minnesota's are the same - very flexible, with a matte finish. I haven't seen the material used for anything else, so it's probably hard to come by, and thus hard to use to make fake IDs.
posted by Coffeemate at 9:55 AM on May 27, 2007

Best answer: The material is called teslin. I don't know why they use it, though.
posted by cosmic osmo at 10:16 AM on May 27, 2007

Best answer: It's durable, and (to disagree with danb) easy to print-on, making it lower cost to make a lot of them. (source)
posted by blue_beetle at 10:30 AM on May 27, 2007

Best answer: Wikipedia would have us believe that it's because it's very strong and works well in standard printers. Sadly, it's not hard stuff to come by. I've seen very good fakes made of it.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 10:31 AM on May 27, 2007

Curse you, blue_beetle! That didn't even show up on preview. Harumph.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 10:32 AM on May 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: thanks cosmic. According to wikipedia, it's basically a very strong kind of synthetic paper that works well with inkjet printers. It seems like it would make making a Fake ID even easier, since you can run it through a regular printer. It's marketed as something durable to be printed on, so I guess that's why they use it.

Thanks.
posted by delmoi at 10:33 AM on May 27, 2007

Response by poster: (heh, I typed out my response before blue_beetle's comment too)
posted by delmoi at 10:35 AM on May 27, 2007