Restricting driver's licenses

[Benzadmiral]

As we've said many times on this board and elsewhere, people are idiots when it comes to driving. We need better driver's education, of course, and we need the cops to enforce something other than speed limits. ("You were tailgating, sir." "Sir, you were blocking the left lane, which is only for passing.")

But I've got another suggestion. How about we *don't* hand out driver's licenses to everybody with a pulse?

Specifically, we restrict those who:
1) Can't pass a written driving test in English
2) Have a felony criminal record, especially if it involves violence (or something to do with a car -- duh!)
3) Have certified mental problems, esp. if they are taking medications for such conditions

We restrict those with epilepsy, for example, until they have had a certain period of time free of seizures. (Though I've often wondered how many seizures the epileptic has had that he concealed. Imagine having a seizure on the night before your suspension expires. Who would be honest enough to tell the examiner the truth?) Perhaps these restrictions could come with periods of suspension, longer for those with more severe violations.

If you say it would violate the convict's civil rights, I say he's already breached the contract between people in a civil society, i.e., he committed a crime. What right does he have to that society's benefits?

Yes, I know enforcing this sort of thing would mean increasing the presence of government in our lives, especially in the case of the mental patients and when it came to checking the period of suspension. And I know that criminals are going to drive, license or not -- though with no license, that would give us another good reason to lock 'em up, far far away from our roads.

People have to get to work, you say? Well, maybe they should just move a little closer to their work and walk, bike, or take a bus. Voila, healthier Americans. Or they could, I don't know, *make sure they meet the restrictions when they apply for a license*? "Don't do the crime if you'd can't do the time"?

No, I don't expect this to happen, and it would be make our society even more 1984-ish than it is now. But anything to reduce congestion *might* well be a good thing.

Suggestions, improvements, obstacles?