Driving Should Be A Right (and Why Pennsylvania Sucks)
Today I learned about a disturbing story in Pennsylvania. A guy visited his doctor. In the visit, he shared that he drinks 6-8 beers a day. A few weeks after the visit, the state suspends his driver’s license.
What happened? Pennsylvania law requires doctors to report conditions that dramatically affect a person’s ability to drive. This is understandable in the case of problems like blindness, insanity, loss of limbs, and dementia.
But why did this guy, who had committed no crime, get his license suspended? Simply because of the likelihood of him driving while intoxicated. Never mind the fact that the guy hasn’t had a DUI in 24 years!
How could something like this happen?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because of the defective notion that driving is a “privilege” instead of a “right.”
If driving is a right, it is incumbent on the state to prove the necessity of any restrictions. Casting driving as a privilege reverses the paradigm: the state is automatically justified in creating almost any restriction, and the burden of fighting unnecessary restrictions then falls on the often hapless minority the restrictions affect. The privilege mindset legitimizes arbitrary and capricious rules.
Driving should be considered a right. It’s alright for driving to be a limited right with age restrictions. The right should be taken away or amended if there is just cause. But driving must fundamentally be a right.
It bothers me that this guy’s license was taken away even though he has not been caught in a DUI and his last DUI was over two decades ago. If the doctor reported this observation, and the patient was caught with a DUI after this report, then the doctor’s report would justify more severe consequences. But to remove this guy’s license just because he was sharing important information with his doctor and not admitting to a crime is asinine. It’s like being hauled in for wife beating just because someone came to a doctor with a wrist injury that is suggestive of the injured person having hit something–anything.
Ever heard of “innocent until proven guilty”? Can anyone see the Orwellian overtones in this action?
One thing that separates free societies from the commies and Nazis and fascists and Islamists and tyrannical regimes is the respect for individual liberties and rights. Part of this respect means you need a real, actual, factual reason to curtail rights. Part of this respect also means you don’t rip off someone’s balls just for toeing a line. You don’t treat people like robots whose whole life’s purpose is to exactingly meet every rule you set upon them. You cannot expect perfection, and you must tolerate some degree of imperfect behavior. (That’s why speed laws say “reasonable and prudent” instead of “perfect and 100% guaranteed risk free”.)
The line between “simply imperfect” and “downright dangerous or malicious” is open for debate. But this guy wasn’t even given a chance to cross the line, and it’s an utter shame he was treated this way.
I have been discussing this on a Yahoo Group called roadgeek. This group has many nitwits who swear against rich, HTML enabled emails and claim they have Asperger’s syndrome. (Hence discussions about inane topics like new roads that don’t currently exist and aren’t even planned.) Surprisingly, this group also has many Pennsylvania apologists who think this action was justified. I’d bet that these people have had the mindset drilled into their psyche for years and haven’t thought to challenge it. A policeman retorted that the action was justified because it was the law. Never mind that the law administratively treated an innocent guy like a criminal.
You ever see the movie Minority Report? The movie’s premise is:
In the future, criminals are caught before [they even commit a crime], but one of the officers in the special unit is accused of one such crime and sets out to prove his innocence. (IMDB)
This is a disturbing movie. I thought this was a fantasy world set in the future.
I was wrong.
Today I am proud that I am an ignorant Texas Republican redneck. I would be ashamed to be a Pennsylvanian.