Strict proof-of-identification rules have forced drivers to dig up more paperwork before they visit the Division of Motor Vehicles for that precious piece of plastic.

Starting this summer, you'll leave the DMV office with a new kind of paperwork in hand -- instead of that new plastic.

DMV will send you off with a temporary driving certificate, if you qualify -- and a promise to mail the actual driver's license to your home within 20 days.

The change starts today in the Lillington DMV office and will be phased in by October in all 124 offices across the state. All the new, duplicate and renewal licenses previously issued on the spot in local offices -- 2.6 million licenses last year -- will now be produced at DMV headquarters in Raleigh.

For most drivers, the change is just a procedural hassle. You'll take the usual tests, and the DMV will record your photo and signature before you leave the office.

You'll be able to drive legally with your 20-day paper certificate -- and your old plastic license will still serve as a photo ID -- until a new license arrives by mail.

But you may discover more profound changes if you haven't renewed your license in the past several years. Before the DMV pronounces you fit to drive a car, it now digs deep into your identity and your background.

The DMV says it wants to do a better job of knocking out identity fraud and identity theft. Before it issues your license, the DMV will spend up to 20 days verifying:

WHO YOU ARE, REALLY. New drivers must produce two forms of ID. Not even a U.S. passport is considered sufficient proof, by itself, of your identity.

(For license renewals, your old North Carolina license is enough -- for now. You can get details on all of this at local DMV offices or online at www.ncdot.gov/dmv/.)

WHETHER YOU HAVE USED A DIFFERENT NAME TO GET A LICENSE IN THE PAST. Your photo will be checked against 25 million mug shots in DMV's database, which includes multiple images for drivers who have renewed their licenses several times in the past.

(DMV officials say this photo-recognition technology would have kept one clever crook from getting multiple licenses under 41 names over a three-year period in the 1990s. His brazen fraud came to light after a traffic stop in Tarboro three years ago; the driver got away.)

WHETHER YOU ARE IN THE UNITED STATES LEGALLY. In most cases that means a valid Social Security number or appropriate federal immigration documents.

If you have a Social Security number, your full name and birth date must be identical in both the federal Social Security and the state DMV databases.

Maybe the Social Security Administration doesn't know your middle or your married name, or when you were born. If so, the DMV will withhold your license until you get the feds to fix their records.

WHETHER YOU ARE BARRED FROM DRIVING IN ANOTHER STATE. You won't get your license if you are flagged in the National Driver Register because another state DMV says your license has been revoked or suspended.

The national register is designed to help states warn each other about dangerous drivers. Alas, it also snags good drivers who have had clean records for decades but have ancient paperwork problems that must be resolved in other states.

WHETHER YOU MUST REGISTER AS A SEX OFFENDER. Someone new to North Carolina in the past 12 months will be checked against sex-offender registries in other states. The driver's license will be withheld if he or she has not registered with a local North Carolina sheriff.

This is a back-to-the-future move for DMV, which switched from central to local production of driver's licenses in 1968. The agency has added 36 employees to do this new work in what it calls a "secure site" at its New Bern Avenue headquarters.

"We estimate that 90 to 95 percent of our customers will receive their licenses in three to five days," Wayne Hurder, deputy DMV commissioner, said at a recent state Board of Transportation meeting.

"Most of our customers have been in our database for 20 or 25 years," he said. "It's the other 5 to 10 percent that will require more extensive investigation."

The General Assembly changed the law to provide for a 20-day certificate and first-class mail delivery for the actual licenses. Home delivery is one way to help verify that a driver hasn't provided a bogus address.

Even this will be tricky. The DMV found that 133,000 drivers in 144 North Carolina ZIP codes pick up their mail at the local post office, because the Postal Service does not give them home delivery.

Now the legislature will be asked to make an exception and allow post office delivery for licenses that can't be mailed to the drivers' homes.

$4.01 gas for July 4

What are you doing Independence Day?

Will you and your family forge ahead with travel plans for the Fourth? Will the price of gas force you to shorten the usual holiday trip -- or forgo it altogether?

Share your July 4 plans, frustrations and coping strategies with N&O readers. I'd like to talk with you for a story about the cost of holiday travel. Please let me hear from you.