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Originally Posted by 612Actual
Shoonra wrote - "You mentioned a "Supreme Court" case. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that states have the authority - and duty - to require licenses of all drivers (no exception for "noncommercial" ones) to promote public safety."
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The term DRIVER applies to someone who is getting or AUTHORIZED to get compensation to go from Point A to Point B. "DRIVING" is a privilege because it's a BUSINESS activity. |
You won't find this narrow meaning of Drive or Driver in any court decision issued in the last 90 years. The US Supreme Court used the word "driving" to describe operating a personal automobile at night, without any indication that the motoring was for a commercial purpose.
Mackey v. Montrym (1979) 443 US 1, 61 L.Ed.2d 321, 99 S.Ct 2612.
And particularly what you won't find is a court decision issued in the last 90 years that says that steering one's personal automobile, with no other passenger and no commercial purpose, onto the public roads was not within the definition of Driving or the person behind the wheel was not a Driver.
Indeed, there is no word used in the law dictionaries or in the court cases for someone operating his own car for non-commercial purposes on a public road, other than Driver and Driving.
Nearly all the "citations" made in support of the anti-DL argument turn out to be from cases that had nothing to do with DL. The Chicago case dealt with anticompetitive monopoly given to one transit company. The Thompson case dealt with the revocation of someone's DL at the local police chief's whimsy without any proceding, but it did not deny the necessity of having a DL to operate a car.
Many of the other cases dealt with a "right to travel" in the sense of getting a passport or someone new in town getting public benefits. No case held that there was an inalienable right to operate or drive (or whatever word you want to use) a motor vehicle (or whatever ...) on a public road
without having a valid and current DL.
Even the invocation of First Amendment rights does not entitle a person to drive his own personal automobile on the public road,
even to church services, without compliance with the driver's license and car registration.
Cosby v. State (Ind.App 2000) 738 NE2d 709.