By the end of the 1920s, 75 percent of households owned a car. Part of this was due to the increase in the number of cars and drivers.

Safety concerns began prompting states to issue driving examinations before licensing drivers. As late as the 1930s and 1940s, many states simply instructed the potential driver to pay a small fee of 25 or 50 cents in exchange for a driver's license, which were often sent by mail.

These required no examinations of driving skills and were little more than identification cards. The first driver's licenses were issued in 1903 by Massachusetts and Missouri.