The beauty of a US passport with hazmat and TWIC.

Shame on that random passerby not making an account.

 

I reluctantly agree. Not just in trucking, but for life in general. When I moved to Colorado from Wis. you wouldn't believe the hassle I went through to get my license. BC, PARENTS BC AND DCs, I had to register to vote, HS diploma, I couldn't satisfy this guy. He said, if I had a passport, none of that would have happened. Well, it will be a nice day in the Badger before I leave the good ol' "Inflated States of America", any time soon, so no passport, they know enough about me, and btw, when I renewed my DL this time, no where near the hassle, but they did take my finger print. 1st time for that.

 

Passport is always a great idea.

Just after you have completed the scam of a lifetime on a mark that gave up say $15 million dollars and deposited it in your offshore account, you can get on any commercial airliner and be out of the country before anyone is the wiser.
Spread a few dollars around the corrupt destination with no extradition treaty with the US, buy a reasonable condo and your are set....

 

It's working both ways. If you have HM or TWIC the airport TSA guys will line up to welcome you in clean zone without checking your underwear..

 

You either watch a lot of movies or have lived a much more interesting life than me.

 

Well, Jason Bourne has a passport. Lot's of them. You see how interesting his life is...

 

That whole "no extradition treaty" thing depends on the crime and the country, some countries won't extradite for financial crimes and others will, even the ones that say they won't extradite for financial crimes, well, if you don't spread enough money to the right hands, on a regular basis, you might find "Dog the Bounty Hunter" or one of his compadres knocking on your door anyhow.

 

Actually, there are a lot variables to this, your passport has to be more than 6 months from expiration, and it also depends on how busy they are. My wife works at Denver International Airport, she has a security clearance badge and passport, her badge renews every year on her birthday, she's had to do this 2001 (pre 9/11), 21 days before her birthday she has to go for fingerprints, picture and test. Every year is different, some years it takes a couple of hours, some years it can take the entire 20 days (as an aside, if clearance isn't back by midnight on day 20, on day 21 they do an expedited temporary clearance to renew her badge, but her badge has restricted access until the full clearance comes back).

I have a passport, TWIC, and HAZMAT, and a blackmark, even though I always go 6 weeks beforehand, every time is different. When I renewed at the end of 2021, my TWIC took 3 days, and that was over Christmas. But the chick at the ID place screwed up and forgot to renew both TWIC and HAZMAT, no one caught it for 2 weeks. When I went to do HAZMAT, it took 9 days, even though they had just completed the TWIC check.

When flying, TWIC is the equivalent to CLEAR or PRECHECK, BUT, only in the US, most countries may refuse to accept that as a CLEAR or PRECHECK ID. It's the same with airport badging. My wife's airport badge is the equivalent to CLEAR or PRECHECK, but only in the US. When we go to Cancun, they do not accept either and won't let us access the PRECHECK lines, While a passport is a valid gov't ID, it is not an acceptable replacement for a drivers license, if you're driving without your license and present you passport to the cops, they can and probably will still cite you for driving without a license.