In Florida, if you have a Class E driver's license, you have to renew your license every six years.
Since they went to a database of photos in 1997, you can just renew over the internet for extra $3 over the standard $10 renewal fee (and save yourself an hour to three-hour wait). Before the new licenses of '97, you had the standard laminated card with a photo pasted underneath.
Until recently, rather than waste money, the FDL stuck a light-blue decal on the back of the old licenses for renewal, if none of your vital information or address has changed. The other reason for the change was that it turned out the state had created similar driver's license numbers (!) because the number was based on an altogrithm based on first and last name, sex, age/birthday, race...a lot of white "John Smiths" (as an example) that were born on the exact same day received the exact same DL number. Hence, I still see licenses that date back to 1981 every so often. Most people just don't look quite the same after 23 years.
We've received a new driver's license pattern with more technology, and I suppose, with more anti-counterfeiting measures included in it. Supposedly, nobody will get the decal anymore; the push is to destroy all the old licenses. If you're nice to them, they will give you the old license's photo back.
I'm not sure why, but you have to renew your registration at least every year, while the physical license plate gets replaced every 5 years, regardless if nothing changes on the vehicle or your personal information. And despite making long-lasting tags that don't fade or pleel, or stop reflecting, a perfectly good bit of aluminum is worthless, and you have to lay out another $20-30 for a new one. It's a good bit more ($50-75) for specialty/vanity plates, we have about 50 varieties of them here!
Not to metion, the standard plate has your county printed on them, so should a certian Broward driver just manages to pass time a little quicker in Glades County....
