In CA, No More Driver's Licences Required For Jobs With No Driving
January 3, 2025 6:22 AM   Subscribe

Requiring a driver's license for employment is now prohibited in California if driving is not reasonably expected to be part of the job duties. This is great - requiring a driver's licence for jobs that involve zero driving is used to discriminate against Disabled people including wheelchair users; Blind/Low Vision people; many people with Autism; many people with Anxiety.

Also people who grew up in foster care are less likely to have driver's licences as young adults (their parents didn't teach them to drive, and paid driving lessons are very expensive)

and people who are recent refugees or recent migrants may have a driver's licence for their country of origin but not for the country that they are living in now.

I would love to see other countries like Australia adopt a law that you can't require a driver's licence for jobs that don't require driving.

eg A nurse who visits people at their homes to do woundcare = employer can require a driver's licence.

A nurse who works 100% in a hospital environment and never does home visits = employer can't require a driver's licence.

A library staff member who takes books to people houses or to remote communities = employer can require a driver's licence.

A library staff member who reshelves books and helps people borrow books and never leaves the library during work hours = employer can't require a driver's licence.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (17 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
I've never understood the whole thing the US has against an actual ID card.
I get that it's part of the national Cowboy Cosplay, but it seems so awkward.
posted by signal at 6:47 AM on January 3 [6 favorites]


I've never understood the whole thing the US has against an actual ID card.

In New Jersey you can get a state-issued ID that's not a driver's license but works as such for identification purposes. I'm sure most, if not all states, have something similar. I'm skeptical about any push for a national ID card for the same reason I don't like laws requiring identification to vote - there will be much fuckery around who can get an ID, and it will be made intentionally difficult for many people, often already marginalized, to get one.
posted by mollweide at 7:40 AM on January 3 [12 favorites]


California has state ID cards as well.

As someone who can't drive for medical reasons this is nice to hear.
posted by brundlefly at 7:47 AM on January 3 [8 favorites]


Note that 2024 SB 1100 isn’t about jobs requiring a state ID, whether driver or non-driver ID; it’s about stopping employers from demanding a driver’s license as a form of winnowing the applicant pool.
posted by Callisto Prime at 7:53 AM on January 3 [17 favorites]


In New Jersey you can get a state-issued ID that's not a driver's license but works as such for identification purposes. I'm sure most, if not all states, have something similar. I'm skeptical about any push for a national ID card for the same reason I don't like laws requiring identification to vote - there will be much fuckery around who can get an ID, and it will be made intentionally difficult for many people, often already marginalized, to get one.

Those don't necessarily work for all identification purposes in the States, though--it depends on whether whoever you're showing them to is familiar with your local ID. For example, I've seen them refused to purchase alcohol when the user is out-of-state. In a lot of ways, these lesser-known photo IDs that aren't driver's licenses are second-class identification unless you are using a passport instead, which also take a lot more fuckery to get together and execute than a driver's license.

I'd personally prefer to make "state issued photo ID" a separate thing from "certified to drive large vehicle", but that's not likely to happen any time soon, so.
posted by sciatrix at 7:55 AM on January 3 [9 favorites]


Yes, CA has regular ID cards, which you also get at the DMV. I had one for years before finally getting my driver's license. As someone who didn't drive for a few decades, I approve of this.

What I'm wondering about are the jobs that want you to have "reliable transportation" in the job ads, which always seemed like code for "has a car" to me. Like "I take the bus every day" wasn't what they were fishing for.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:11 AM on January 3 [14 favorites]


> What I'm wondering about are the jobs that want you to have "reliable transportation" in the job ads, which always seemed like code for "has a car" to me. Like "I take the bus every day" wasn't what they were fishing for.

The majority of listings I see these days for desk jobs in IT -- programming, tech support and related positions where all actual work is done at a keyboard and monitor, including 100% remote gigs -- require the ability to lift and carry 30 lbs. It is obviously discriminatory bullshit. I held a job with this requirement and when it came time for us desk jockeys to relocate to a new office, we were literally sanctioned against packing and carrying anything larger than our laptops. They had hired movers for that stuff.

It is code just like "reliable transportation" is code, a Human Resources redline. It helps filter people they consider chaff, by only passing people who are not beholden to transit schedules and whose physical conditions will not affect the company's health insurance expenses.
posted by at by at 8:24 AM on January 3 [14 favorites]


For example, I've seen [non-driver IDs] refused to purchase alcohol when the user is out-of-state.

I've seen this too, especially when I was younger and around more people in their early 20s.

And it might seem merely annoying, but I'd argue it is discriminatory and significant, since even if you don't drink, a decent amount of business, socializing, music, and art takes place in bars that might arbitrarily and unpredictably deny you entry. Also it just makes no logical sense to deny alcohol to someone because they don't drive, and nowadays at least the state nondriver IDs are generally identical in terms of anti-counterfeiting measures to driver's licenses.

There are also potentially more hoops to jump through to get a passport if you have a state ID that's not a license, which is also not ideal or, to my mind, logical.
posted by smelendez at 9:35 AM on January 3 [3 favorites]


The majority of listings I see these days for desk jobs in IT -- programming, tech support and related positions where all actual work is done at a keyboard and monitor, including 100% remote gigs -- require the ability to lift and carry 30 lbs. It is obviously discriminatory bullshit.

My academic job had this in the job ad (14 years ago). I asked about it in the interview, and they told me not to worry about it, no one was checking, but it was definitely off-putting, and I can imagine a disabled person being like "this place looks like it is super-ablist, so I'm not going to bother".

Good news is that I'm chairing the search committee this year (oops), and the ad this year says only that you need to have a PhD with 18 graduate credit hours in the field, i.e., the actual requirements for the job. No mention of lifting heavy things or a driver's license, since those are not in fact necessary.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:58 AM on January 3 [5 favorites]


The majority of listings I see these days for desk jobs in IT -- programming, tech support and related positions where all actual work is done at a keyboard and monitor, including 100% remote gigs -- require the ability to lift and carry 30 lbs.

I work in a mostly desk-bound, mostly remote job in IT, but an infrequent part of my job involves moving and racking server hardware, much of which is well over 30 pounds, and some of which is in a remote location (that I need to be able to get to within a certain amount of time when I'm on call).

But... even though my job absolutely involves having to do those things, the job positions that we post do not mention these as "requirements". We do screen for "how can you get to the server room at midnight", but there's nothing wrong with taking a taxi or rideshare, or living close enough to walk/bike. We did choose to not hire someone who lived 2+ hours away by car, because the position did involve significant on-call exposure. That seemed completely reasonable. Screening based on "can you lift this?" is silly.

Because seriously, if you work with someone who couldn't lift a server comfortably, you don't _want_ them lifting a server that you're working near. There's plenty of other things they can do, and plenty of other people who can move heavy things, and we're all a team. No big deal
posted by toxic at 1:01 PM on January 3 [3 favorites]


I required a driver's license for my job. After I lost my card somewhere, I had a strange experience when I attempted to get a replacement driver's license. I drove to the Texas DMV and entered the office in my wheelchair. I have a dysfunctional left foot and drive only with my right leg/foot. This is usual for almost all automatic cars.

The clerk refused to believe I could drive since she got a wrong notion in her head that is was my RIGHT KNEE that doesn't work. I told her many times that it was my left foot that doesn't work and I don't need it to drive. She repeated louder and louder that I could not have a license because of my RIGHT KNEE! After many reiterations that I really can drive with just my right leg, she was not convinced. She refused to reissue my card until I took the driving test completely over.

Two weeks later I passed the written test with an almost perfect score. I then took the driving portion of the test and made a perfect score (after 45 years of driving!). The examiner told me that he was completely relaxed during the test because I followed all the rules of the road without exception. I even parallel parked perfectly in one try. He was gobsmacked when I told him the reason I had to be retested.

When I returned to the office, I slowly and painfully cripped in with a cane so the wheelchair could not be used in evidence against me. My license was reissued.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 1:26 PM on January 3 [15 favorites]


I am not a lawyer, but I would have thought that even before this law this was illegal under the principle of disparate impact. I'm surprised they wouldn't have been challenged as such and thus become known to be illegal once the precedent was set. I mean great that it's illegal now, but really weird that it was allowed to go on so long.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:52 PM on January 3 [2 favorites]


I would love to see other countries like Australia adopt a law that you can't require a driver's licence for jobs that don't require driving.

Australia does effectively have such a law; probably three of them. As if only I had a penguin notes above, this is probably "disparate impact" or, to use the Aussie terminology, indirect discrimination. That makes it unlawful under both state and federal discrimination laws. It's also likely to be a breach of the General Protections provisions of the Fair Work Act, which apply not just to employees, but also to prospective employees (such as job applicants).

I agree that it would be better to have a clear, explicit statement in legislation that this particular practice is unlawful.
posted by GeckoDundee at 2:07 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]


I would love to see other countries like Australia adopt a law that you can't require a driver's licence for jobs that don't require driving.

Australia does effectively have such a law; probably three of them. As if only I had a penguin notes above, this is probably "disparate impact" or, to use the Aussie terminology, indirect discrimination. That makes it unlawful under both state and federal discrimination laws. It's also likely to be a breach of the General Protections provisions of the Fair Work Act, which apply not just to employees, but also to prospective employees (such as job applicants).


Either Australia does not have such a law, or it is not enforced.

I have seen listings for jobs with the Australian Federal government; the Western Australian government; and local council governments that "must have driver's licence" when driving is not ever part of the job.

I myself applied for (and got) a job with the Australian Federal government in 2003 that "must have driver's licence". The number of times I was required to drive in that job in over 9 years? Zero. Yet without a licence, I wouldn't even have gotten an interview.

The classic example is local councils advertising for library staff to reshelve books and help people borrow books during standard business hours in public libraries in inner suburbs close to plentiful buses and trains where driving is never a part of the job - these jobs are routinely advertised as "must have driver's licence". My partner is able bodied but never learned to drive and he has been precluded from applying from genuinely hundreds of library jobs that he would otherwise be qualified for - including one job where the library in question was a five minute walk from his house!
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 3:26 PM on January 3 [3 favorites]


Part of the reason requirements like this exist is to provide employers flexibility in assignments.

To take the example from the post:

eg A nurse who visits people at their homes to do woundcare = employer can require a driver's licence.

A nurse who works 100% in a hospital environment and never does home visits = employer can't require a driver's licence


The hospital probably has a regular rotation of nurses for doing home wound care, but they want the flexibility of assigning a random nurse from the floor if they get really unlucky and the home health nurses are all out.

Similarly, requiring everyone to be able to lift 30 pounds is so that you can be asked to do that in a pinch. Eg when I did datacenter work, every once in a while we would pull in random engineers to help out if we had to recable the entire room or something.

The impact is, of course, discriminatory as hell. I think this is a good law. But I’ll be interested to see if part of the impact is workflow changes to do something like put everyone in an office on the home call rotation, rather than preserving the existence of roles that didn’t include it.
posted by learning from frequent failure at 3:31 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]


> I work in a mostly desk-bound, mostly remote job in IT, but an infrequent part of my job involves moving and racking server hardware...

At this particular company, the 30 lbs requirement was mandatory for programmers, testers and customer support. None of us were going to be racking servers, we weren't allowed -- the data center held proprietary customer data and only a designated few admin staff were permitted. The heaviest things the rest of us ever carried were our laptops.

It's also true of many job listings I see. People holding down remote jobs in application support are not going to be in anybody's NOC. Programmers are generally not doing server room work unless they're explicitly devops.

I'm sure moving hardware is an expectation for some jobs, and it's true for jobs I've held at other companies. But not all of them. Very few if any tech offices need everybody to have a minimum lifting/carrying ability.
posted by at by at 4:26 PM on January 3 [3 favorites]


I'd say "not enforced" in that most employees / potential employees were reluctant to go through the stress, hassle, and expense of making a claim. However, that is very likely to change as a result of the amendments to the Australian Human Rights Act which came in at the end of last year. The changes mean applicants who bring discrimination complaints will likely get a significant chunk of their legal costs awarded to them if they win, but won't have to pay the costs of the respondent employer if they lose.

In other words, it's always been unlawful (to require a drivers licence when there is no reasonable requirement to do so), but now it's a bit less risky and stressful for people to do something about it.

Here's hoping it results in employers starting to take these laws a bit more seriously.
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:47 PM on January 3 [2 favorites]


« Older The Dark Fantastic & Michael Hutter   |   Author, Author Newer »


You are not currently logged in. Log in or create a new account to post comments.