An argument I hate
That one does not have a right to drive. SCOTUS has held you generally have a right to travel freely. The most common means of travel is driving.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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January 14th, 2011 at 10:35 am
Yet the “right to drive” is not specifically protected as is the right to bear arms. The fact remains that road to the right to drive is much longer than the right to be armed.
January 14th, 2011 at 10:36 am
In general the whole “if it isn’t specifically noted in the Constitution then it isn’t a right” argument is idiotic and probably means you didn’t make it all the way to the 10th.
January 14th, 2011 at 11:47 am
Meant more in sarcasm than anything else.
January 14th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
We have a right to seek transportation; but if one has been proven incapable of driving safely, one does not have the right to insist on being licensed. There’s a difference between having a right and being allowed the exercise it; the difference lies in a person’s willingness to accept possible consequences for exercising said right.
January 14th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Wow just wow, there, J., I hope you’ll be singing the same tune when your Blogging Permit comes up. Soon.
Thus Leviathan doth make a Consequence of us all.
January 14th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
IMHO NO state program of drivers instruction EVER improved ANY driving -just like Hunter Safety doesn’t improve hunting skills. You learn it from your family, your peers and your experience. Drivers Licensing could be done away with. Driving stats would be about the same.
Frustrating to hear otherwise conservative talking folks get all indignant about unlicensed drivers or parrot the statist line the ‘driving is NOT a right.” Sure it is. Just like coming and going, being armed, living your own life, et.
January 14th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
I’ve always been factinated with that arguement. I suppose that if there is no right to drive, the government could, for instance, make it illegal for women to drive without recourse in the courts. Right ?
I doubt it.
January 14th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Treefroggy: No, but only because of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Without that, I can’t see any legal reason that women couldn’t be banned from driving.
(For that matter, the States could simply ban automobiles on public roads, if they chose to. I can’t think of any legal reason it’s beyond their power to do so.)
Remember that it’s illegal for anyone to drive (on public roads) without a license and, of course, if you can’t pass or won’t take their test, no license. And there is no legal recourse at all for that.
Even if we accept that driving is a right of any sort (as opposed to “travel”, and “driving” by a sort of hand-waving extension based mostly on a desire to see people NOT use a parallel but inapplicable argument about “arms”), it plainly is not an enumerated right that “shall not be infringed”, like the Second Amendment right to arms.
A natural right to travel does not automatically and without argument translate into a natural right to drive a car.
If there’s any right to specifically drive at all, it’s a purely legal one – and I don’t know that any laws make call it one.
January 14th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Perhaps we’ll live long enough to see that argument go by the board.
January 14th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Don’t know about other states, but in OK it specifically says that ‘Driving is a Privilege, not a right’; so by accepting the ‘privilege’ of a drivers license you give ‘implied consent’ to DUI testing and so forth.
Which means you have a right to travel, but if you want personal powered transportation, THAT’S considered a privilege.
January 14th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
The ruling on this is that you do have a RIGHT. To drive an automobile. It is a general right recognized and protected by the Constitution. Now, a right can not be administratively or judicially changed to a privilege. No matter how they stack the courts. Any court or LEO who says otherwise is knowingly or otherwise committing a crime; federal violation of civil rights, etc, et al.
In the supreme Court’s own words, it is NOT a mere privilege:
The right of a citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon in the ordinary course of life and business is a common right which he has under his right to enjoy life and liberty…. It includes the right in so doing to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day; and under existing modes of travel includes the right to drive a horse-drawn carriage or wagon thereon, or to operate an automobile thereon for the usual and ordinary purposes of life and business. It is not a mere privilege, like the privilege of moving a house in the street, operating a business stand in the street, or transporting persons or property for hire along the street, which the city may permit or prohibit at will.
Thompson v. Smith, 154 S.E. 579, 1929
January 15th, 2011 at 7:19 am
Well done CarlsS.
January 15th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Way to entirely miss the point of the case, CarlS. What is the very next sentence in the decision? “The exercise of such a common right the city may, under its police power, regulate in the interest of the public safety and welfare; but it may not arbitrarily or unreasonably prohibit or restrict it, nor may it permit one to exercise it and refuse to permit another of like qualifications, under like conditions and circumstances, to exercise it.”
The case is about the arbitrary denial of licenses, rather than having them granted or denied according to a set policy (this is similar to the standard used in First Amendment cases for things like protest and march permits). It in no way professes a right to use the “conveyances of the day” without restriction, and in fact expressly denies this.
Incidentally, certain libertarians are exposing their beliefs as based not on principle but on solipsism. They’re happy to talk about the Constitution only letting the federal government deal with defense, foreign relations, currency, and transportation, but as soon as they don’t like the way a state deals with transportation they go saying that transportation is a fundamental right that cannot in any way be infringed. The requirement of licensing absolutely fits within the requirements of federalism and due process, yet even this isn’t enough for those who think anything that causes them to make any sort of sacrifice is the Worst Thing in the World.
January 15th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Not to mention the dangers of trying to interpret case law when you have no understanding of how the legal system works. If you’re going to cite a case as applicable to all Americans, you might want to try the United States Supreme Court (aka SCOTUS) and not the Supreme Court of Virginia. The “S.E.” designation in the cite is an easy indication: SCOTUS decisions have “U.S.” or “S. Ct.” in there.
Whether this should be taken as an indication that certain things, be they the practice of law on behalf of another or the operation of motor vehicles on the public highways, ought to be limited to those with a demonstrated proficiency so as to prevent harm to the innocent public is something I will leave to your consideration.