Wacky Wednesday--We Shouldn’t Have Driving Laws

Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.

~Don’t you believe in freedom?

~Who are you to tell me how to live my life?

~People are basically responsible and self-interested enough to look out for themselves.

~99% of all driving is done without cops around. Why can’t it be 100%?

~We could still have all the other basic rules like negligent homicide and torts for wrongs committed.

~Get the government out of the licensing racket.

~Speed limits are arbitrary abuses of power for the purpose of getting your money.

~You don’t have “walking rules,” and yet billions of people walk safely every day.

~Why can’t the market and individual responsibility just solve this problem?

~Who are you to judge what’s safe for someone else to do?

~Just think of all the ridiculous laws we have in the name of “car safety.”

~Wouldn’t you rather just get in your car and drive to work without the worry of running afoul of some deputy working to meet a quota, basically the same way you walk to work?

~We let people marry without a government licensing program and almost no regulation whatsoever.

~We let people parent without a government licensing program and very little regulation.

~We trust people with guns with almost no supervision or restraint at all.

~We trust people with the printing press and the website with no supervision or restraint at all except after the fact when they’ve caused some measurable harm.

~Isn’t freedom of mobility an important enough concern to not have the government intruding on it?

~Why wouldn’t the average decency, self-governing, responsibility of the American citizen work here, too?

~Why don’t you TRUST your fellow citizen better than that?

~Traffic laws are really just a pretext to harass citizens, stop them without any good reason, and elicit funds from them in a haphazard and unjust way.

~Under our current system, something like 40,000 people a year die in car-related crashes. How’s that working for us so far?

~Show me one thing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the power to regulate traffic?

~Ask yourself a simple question: how often do the people who make decisions about traffic get it wrong? Speed limits too low (too high). Stop signs that should be yields. Stop signs are a great example, how many people actually come to a full and complete stop like the law requires at any time other than when a cop is nearby? And you just know that the entire point of having a “no U-turn” sign is to indicate the precise location of the absolutely most necessary places to make a U-turn!

~Three letters for you: DMV.