That argument applies to virtually the entire country, zoned specifically to sell cars, with few recent exceptions. I'm not blaming the mom for that situation, I'm not sure why anyone would think that. This is just another death that seems to at least partially implicate big oil, big auto, and corrupt politicians.
There's a whole book about this: # Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.
The Aquaman movies were laying some groundwork for the Warlock comics to maybe be included, which is a hollow-earth reality. It's too bad they did such a terrible job.
Military, sure, but driver's licenses are state-level, not federal. Health care has been using birthdate like a password (one that is largely publicly available) for way too long now. At least financial institutions can use account numbers and financial history and code words, but even all that isn't great.
It's a messy patchwork, but I think at the time of the creation of the SSA, the US may have still thought of itself as a land of second chances. IBM numbering Holocaust victims probably didn't help the idea of a national ID, nor did the victim narrative of groups like the NRA.
I'm not sure if it's possible not to have a national ID anymore, so denial of it just forces a terribly kludgy implementation from whatever is around.
The societal indictment is exactly how I read it. Why would people take it the worst possible way?