REAL ID renews America’s age-old dread of the DMV

A stricter identity verification requirement for U.S. residents is slated to take force next week after 20 years of delay. And for many, the law will require a visit to one of the nation's most notorious, time-honored places of dread: the Department of Motor Vehicles.

These facilities can vary slightly both in name and in acronym: Texans, for example, have a Department of Public Safety or DPS; Floridians dub theirs the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles or HSMV. (Add to the mix the DDS, the BMV and the MVD, it's a veritable alphabet soup.)

Despite the different names, each of these state-run facilities serves the same purpose: to license drivers and issue identification cards to residents living in the state. They share the same wait times and inspire the same feelings of burden and loathing.

But for individuals in some states, things are about to get a lot worse, fast.