For 18 years, I thought she was stealing my identity. Until I found her

[Barrister]

  Because OF COURSE everyone charged with a driving offence has a driver's license...

Because OF COURSE everybody in New York City has unique names and dates of birth

It's a pretty good assumption, actually.  I mean yes, out of eight million New Yorkers it turns out two of them share the exact same name and date of birth (down to the same year).

[garbon]

  Because OF COURSE everyone charged with a driving offence has a driver's license...

Because OF COURSE everybody in New York City has unique names and dates of birth

It's a pretty good assumption, actually.  I mean yes, out of eight million New Yorkers it turns out two of them share the exact same name and date of birth (down to the same year).

I bet it is significantly higher than that. Say like 'John Smith'. Lisa Davis isn't the most common name.

[Oexmelin]

Yes, it must be. And that is not considering certain ethnicities with much less range in family names.

I am in that very same situation myself. Same name, same birth date with somebody else. I discovered that situation, because we were enrolled in the same college, and got some of his documents by mistake. From then on, we were Oexmelin-Neighborhood X and Oexmelin-Neighborhood Y.

And then, we met at the Quebec equivalent of the DMV, because we unknowingly had scheduled our driving test the same day. When they called our name, we both stepped to the counter... Fortunately, never encountered difficulties with the law, and all others were dispelled by comparing SSN, photos, and addresses.

[Berkut]

I thought the point of the sotry wasn't really about how two people with the same name got stuff mixed up.

I thought the point was more about how two people born on the same day had such radically different scope of interactions with the justice system - in many/most cases it being mostly (or apparently) driven by their race and where they lived than anything else...

[garbon]

I thought the point of the sotry wasn't really about how two people with the same name got stuff mixed up.

I thought the point was more about how two people born on the same day had such radically different scope of interactions with the justice system - in many/most cases it being mostly (or apparently) driven by their race and where they lived than anything else...

That was the human interest piece that the journalist tried to build into it, yeah.

[Barrister]

I thought the point of the sotry wasn't really about how two people with the same name got stuff mixed up.

I thought the point was more about how two people born on the same day had such radically different scope of interactions with the justice system - in many/most cases it being mostly (or apparently) driven by their race and where they lived than anything else...

Of course it was.

There just arent' any easy quips to make about it.

[Valmy]

Of course it was.

There just arent' any easy quips to make about it.

Not true. We make quips about that all the time. I mean that is like 70% of Seedy's entire post history.

The other part was actually new information so we talked about that.

[CountDeMoney]

I thought the point of the sotry wasn't really about how two people with the same name got stuff mixed up.

I thought the point was more about how two people born on the same day had such radically different scope of interactions with the justice system - in many/most cases it being mostly (or apparently) driven by their race and where they lived than anything else...

That was the human interest piece that the journalist tried to build into it, yeah.

You mean, stuff like

But I was beginning to understand that, for most of the people there, injustice was a given.

[garbon]

I thought the point of the sotry wasn't really about how two people with the same name got stuff mixed up.

I thought the point was more about how two people born on the same day had such radically different scope of interactions with the justice system - in many/most cases it being mostly (or apparently) driven by their race and where they lived than anything else...

That was the human interest piece that the journalist tried to build into it, yeah.

You mean, stuff like

But I was beginning to understand that, for most of the people there, injustice was a given.

Yep. The kind of deep realization that I'd expect out of Lena Dunham.

[CountDeMoney]

My deeper racial awakenings are narrated by Bill Curtis, next on A&E.

[dps]

  Because OF COURSE everyone charged with a driving offence has a driver's license...

Because OF COURSE everybody in New York City has unique names and dates of birth

It's a pretty good assumption, actually.  I mean yes, out of eight million New Yorkers it turns out two of them share the exact same name and date of birth (down to the same year).

Back when I lived in Hillsville VA, my doctor had another patient named David Patrick Stokes, with the same date of birth, including the year, as me.  I thought that it was a pretty freaky coincidence.  If I was living in a really large city like NY, and had a more common surname, I wouldn't have found it surprising.

[PDH]

Good thing nobody else has the name of "Uosdwis R Dewoh" I am safe.

[Josquius]

Even with my very uncommon family name I've found at least 2 guys with the same name.
One seems to be only a few years younger and did his bachelors at the same university.
Google image search also brings up numerous pictures of him being an idiot- upon discovering this I made an effort to make some pictures of myself show up there just to emphasise that I am not him.


Pretty dumb that the system wouldn't do something in this woman's case. At the least I hope now that the computer system flags something if two people with the same name are born on the same day.

[dps]

At the least I hope now that the computer system flags something if two people with the same name are born on the same day.

I would be extremely surprised if that happens.  In fact, in the US, I would be somewhat surprised if all 50 states actually have birth records stored on computers.

[merithyn]

I bet it is significantly higher than that. Say like 'John Smith'. Lisa Davis isn't the most common name.

My birth name is Mary-Ann Williams. Hyphens in first names usually don't fly in computers, so I inevitably got put in as Mary Williams. In Iowa city, there was another Mary Williams with the same birth date. We were regularly confused for one another, including bills from the hospital, driving records, etc. It took me several years to untangle my credit from hers, because even though they had the right SSNs for us, they would put the wrong bills to the SSN.

It was a nightmare.