Crime and Punishment and Libertarianism
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008My post downblog on Bob Novak’s hit-and-run on an elderly pedestrian sparked a debate on access to driver’s licenses and whether senior citizens should be required to retake their driver’s tests. Of course, because seniors vote in disproportionate numbers and have powerful lobbies representing them, any policy of singling them out for increased scrutiny is a non-starter. But that’s not so bad, ultimately, because raising the standards on driving tests, and requiring re-tests at regular intervals throughout one’s life — perhaps every 5 years, perhaps every 10, perhaps every 20 — would be both fairer and better policy. The fact is that there are all sorts of reasons why one’s competence behind the wheel can decline, some related to aging, many others related to any number of chronic physical and mental conditions that can strike at a variety of ages. And though such a policy shift would (obviously) impose new restrictions on drivers, a) the benefit — namely fewer drivers on the road and much greater competence among them, hence much safer roads — presumably outweighs the burden of spending a few hours at the DMV every so often, and b) there is no real legitimate libertarian concern in the first place, because except on privately owned tracks, getting behind the wheel doesn’t just impose risks on a driver and those who voluntarily ride with her. And perhaps most importantly, c) significantly ratcheting up the standards for acquiring a driver’s license can be a stepping stone to making society friendlier to liberty in general. With greater confidence that drivers are for all intents and purposes uniformly competent to handle high-speed driving situations, for example, there shouldn’t be any barrier on non-libertarian grounds to raising speed limits and/or creating autobahn-type options which would, in turn, greatly ease road congestion and traffic-induced stress, and thus be a boon both to productivity and overall quality of life (even if only at the margins).