Driving Should Be a Right, Not a Privilege

[zerokill2006]

I say this only because the state has the power to criminalize you for failing to pay a registration fee by suspending your license.

Driving has become so integral and necessary to our daily lives that it really needs to be a right.

"What about the drunks?" you might say.....any right can be rescinded with due process. If a drunk is convicted...the state can now revoke his license to drive. Still a right though.

Making driving a right limits the State's ability to criminalize you. Meaning they cannot just suspend your license unless they go through due process where the burden of proof lies with them.

The State has abused the fact that driving is a privilege and the fact that driving is such an integral part of society. I think it's time we recognized this and made driving a right that can only be revoked or suspended with due process.

What do you think?

[Mr. Knowitall]

Well, as they say, you're entitled to your opinion.

[Taxing Matters]

I say this only because the state has the power to criminalize you for failing to pay a registration fee by suspending your license.

I do not know of any state that makes a criminal offense to not pay your license renewal fee. Sure, a state can suspend your license for failure to pay that fee, but suspension is not the same thing as prosecution for a crime. What you are really saying here is that you want to be able to drive without having to pay a fee for the license. If that’s the goal, then lobby your state legislature to remove the fee. Of course, then it will need to find some other source of revenue to replace the revenue generated by those fees.

As to your contention that driving should be a right, I disagree. That would unnecessarily complicate the state’s legitimate need to ensure that the drivers on the roads are reasonably safe. Rights are not easily limited and making driving a right could well result in a number of unintended and unwanted consequences. One sure thing that would result from doing that is a whole new swamp of litigation in the courts to sort out just exactly what the right means and what limits the state may put on it, leading to years of uncertainty as to what the law really is and what the state may do.

It is not the case even now that states may do whatever they want. Federal and state constitutions contain guarantees of equal protection and due process, among other rights, that do apply to state licensing decisions.

Bottom line here is that I do not see anything wrong with the current system that simple legislation cannot easily correct nor anything wrong with the current system that would need making driving a right to fix.

[jdbofky]

The original view of SCOTUS was that the right to travel by motor vehicle was a fundamental right.

“The right of the 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 the right to enjoy life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, and to pursue happiness and safety. It includes the right, in so doing, to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day, and under the 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 purpose of life and business.”

Thompson v. Smith, 154 SE 579, 11 American Jurisprudence, Constitutional Law, section 329, page 1135.

Of course, since the 1930's that position has changed. Our rights are what the government, primarily the Supreme Court, says they are. I'm not aware of any case that removes this fundamental right status from horse-drawn conveyances, though they can be regulated (such as requiring slow vehicle markings). Personally, I fail to see the difference in rights involved whether traveling by horse or motor vehicle, but as was pointed out, we can all have an opinion. There are only 9 opinions that matter, though.

[KBoy420]

So if driving is not a privilege and rather a right, is there a requirement to have insurance? Or you want to argue that not only should you be allowed to drive wherever without a license or registration, but you also don't have to have insurance either, right?

[Zeo]

Driving is a right, under international treaty, which the Constitution says trumps state laws.

HOWEVER, the Federal Government has chosen not to enforce treaty law in Country upon its own citizens a vast majority of the time.

Where the legality of this comes in, as that WHILE the treaty binds the Federal Government to recognize driving as right, it dos not bind them to pass legislation to force States to do so. In other words, the Federal Government is turning a blind eye toward incorporating the right to drive.

Therefore the States have the option to ignore the treaty, because they are not party to it, only the Federal Government is, and as long as the Federal Government deosn't interfere with the the right to drive, they are not breaking the treaty. States are also forbidden to be party to any treaty by the Constitution, and any treaty that binds a state by name is held null and void.

And that my friends is how the United States of America gets out of 99% of its treaty obligations, and not all of the cheating is disadvantageous to you. There a lot of treaties that would requires a lot of hard work and money out of every citizen if they were properly enforced as intended.

[Jim Kozlovich]

I do not know of any state that makes a criminal offense to not pay your license renewal fee.

In California all traffic infractions are considered "criminal" in nature. The Simpson court concluded that:

"An infraction is a criminal matter subject generally to the provisions applicable to misdemeanors, except for the right to a jury trial, the possibility of confinement as a punishment, and the right to court appointed counsel if indigent." (See People v. Simpson, (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th Supp. 6, 167 Cal.Rptr.3d 396)

Driving has become so integral and necessary to our daily lives that it really needs to be a right.

Do you think that free internet access should be a right also simply because it has become "integral and necessary to our daily lives"?

[Zeo]

In California all traffic infractions are considered "criminal" in nature. The Simpson court concluded that:

"An infraction is a criminal matter subject generally to the provisions applicable to misdemeanors, except for the right to a jury trial, the possibility of confinement as a punishment, and the right to court appointed counsel if indigent." (See People v. Simpson, (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th Supp. 6, 167 Cal.Rptr.3d 396)

Do you think that free internet access should be a right also simply because it has become "integral and necessary to our daily lives"?

Considering that the Federal government has basically deemed personal telephone service a right for all practice intents and purposes, and is going out of its way to ensure paying to enforce that right, then yes.

See my above post, Driving is technically already a right.

[Steve418]

I agree that it should be a "right". Of course, I think repeated DUI offenders should have to get breathalyzer ignitions installed in their cars in order to ensure that they aren't driving drunk. Many accidents are caused by drunk drivers, some of which are fatal either for people who happen to sharing the road with them at the time or the drunk driver themselves. I agree though that since driving is such a fundamental part of our day to day lives, it is something that shouldn't be taken away unless someone is intoxicated or has a long history of speeding and doing other things that are dangerous to themselves and others. Even in cases of drunk driving, I feel that installing a breathalyzer into the ignition is a better way of handling the situation that simply banning the person from driving altogether.... even if they are driving sober.

[Edward333]

I say this only because the state has the power to criminalize you for failing to pay a registration fee by suspending your license.

Driving has become so integral and necessary to our daily lives that it really needs to be a right.

"What about the drunks?" you might say.....any right can be rescinded with due process. If a drunk is convicted...the state can now revoke his license to drive. Still a right though.

Making driving a right limits the State's ability to criminalize you. Meaning they cannot just suspend your license unless they go through due process where the burden of proof lies with them.

The State has abused the fact that driving is a privilege and the fact that driving is such an integral part of society. I think it's time we recognized this and made driving a right that can only be revoked or suspended with due process.

What do you think?

Schecter v. Killingsworth, 380 P.2d 136 (Ariz. 1963)

The appellants have asked this Court to re-examine this reasoning, and, after so doing, we have come to the conclusion that we cannot reaffirm the reasoning of the Goodwin case expressed above. In this day, when the motor vehicle is such an important part of our modern day living, when the use of the vehicle is so essential to both a livelihood and the enjoyment of life, this Court recognizes that the use of the public highways is a right which all qualified citizens possess, subject, of course, to reasonable regulation under the police power of the sovereign. We consider applicable the following statement by the Rhode Island Court in Berberian v. Lussier, supra:
"The use of the automobile as a necessary adjunct to the earning of a livelihood in modern life requires us in the interest of realism to conclude that the right to use an automobile on the public highways partakes of the nature of a liberty within the meaning of the constitutional guarantees of which the citizen may not be deprived without due process of law." 139 A.2d at 872.