“It” being old people driving:
A pregnant New York City traffic agent was struck by a van as she crossed a Bronx intersection on Thursday, and her baby boy was delivered by Caesarean section shortly before she died hours later, the authorities said.
…
The van driver, Walter Walker, 72, was arrested and charged with criminal negligent homicide and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
Other reports note that Walker’s drivers license had been suspended twenty times:
Walker, of 139th Street in Manhattan, admitted he hasn’t had a license since the 1960s. He told The [New York] Post he couldn’t ever afford to pay off some $2,000 in unpaid tickets, so he never bothered to get another license.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the van driver had “20 suspensions.”
A police source said he also had a gun bust and arrests for driving on a suspended license, grand larceny, menacing and aggravated harassment.
Walker insists, “My brakes went out.” We shall see.
I am not a believer in the “rights versus privileges” model of driver licensing — or anything else. But, pragmatic questions of implementation aside, there is not — even in the most libertarian paradigm — a “right to be reckless.” At least not when the recklessness involves hurling a multi-ton slab of metal down a public road at lethal speeds.
But, as we all know, the United States is now a politically paralyzed gerontocracy — where even the young and youth-oriented “candidate of change” meekly steps and fetches when Massah Geezer want his tax break. That, combined with our national obsession with automobile worship, leaves little hope for change on the horizon.
No change — just more bodies strewn along the curbside.
For Discussion: What is the proper libertarian approach to elderly driving?
2 responses so far ↓
Link dolphin // Aug 15, 2008 at 11:51 am
I recall the first year I had to get my license renewed fell on the same year as my step-dad's father needed to get his renewed. I, at age 20, had to go into the DMV and take a vision test to get my license renewed. Meanwhile my parents helped him, I believe he was 88 or so at the time, point and click his way to a renewed license online without ever leaving the house.
I don't want to take driving privileges away from safe drivers who are simply old, but I think after a certain point it makes sense to retest the necessary abilities with increasing frequency (though since this man had no license anyways, it would not likely have made a difference). How to turn that into a libertarian viewpoint I'm not sure. Have a private company do the testing and licensing?
Link KipEsquire // Aug 15, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Walker is certainly not the median 72-year old driver. Point conceded. On the other hand, outlier tradegies such as this should remind us also of the lesser externalities that are imposed by incompetent drivers every day: near-misses, fender-benders, even clogged intersections all add up.
The question is when the correlation between age and competence becomes large enough to warrant government action. The two extremes:
(1) no one ever gets to drive at all;
(2) everyone gets to drive until they kill someone,
are both non-starters.