I don't know about America but in the UK people don't get their driving licence taken away that often, even if they have hit 12 points (ie: racked up enough offences to theoretically lose it). There is a lot of consideration as to whether removing the driving licence will cause hardship and defendants obviously usually argue that it will (with some truth) so judges sometimes don't remove the licence.

Anecdotally, I feel like it's actually gotten less common over the years. When I was a teenager I would meet adults who were riding the bus because they'd had their licence taken away. Often it would be for a 6 month period before they could re-apply (without retaking the test). That became less frequent at some point.