Simon_Jester wrote:Up till now, we asked them to carry driver's licenses to prove they were competent to drive, because of the hazard posed to bystanders by an incompetent driver.
If the issue were mere proof that they were competent to drive, then asking people to carry a driver's license while driving is a poor proxy for that.
If they chose to walk to the store, or to let someone else drive them to the store, they did not need to carry a government document certifying their right to go to the store in and of itself.
I think it is significant if this state of affairs changes. There is a difference between needing to carry ID to be permitted to travel in public without being arrested on suspicion of being a noncitizen, and needing to carry IDto establish your bonafides in case you do something specific where allowing uncertified people to do it could be dangerous (like driving, because of accidents, or flying, because of airplane hijackers and bombers).
But you're ignoring the fact that police can still stop such pedestrians and ask them to identify themselves. There is little functional difference between asking them to identify themselves (which the police are permitted to do) and asking them to present identification. This is particularly true in terms of how the Arizona law works: people who present ID are presumed to be legal residents; people who cannot present ID are taken in while their identity is established.
I fail to see why this makes the argument bullshit. And, again, we don't place the same conditions on the passengers of the vehicle: if I drive my brother to the store my brother doesn't have to carry his driver's license, and vice versa. He is not required to present ID, because all he's doing is "breathing while in public," not "operating a motor vehicle."
I agree that this is a change from the current state of the law as it exists in most states. I cannot agree that this change is somehow unconscionable or that it violates some principle of human dignity. When you are out in public, you are expected to behave in certain ways: you are required to wear clothing, for example, and refrain from certain behaviours. Asking people to carry some form of identification is perfectly reasonable, particularly given that you may already be required to truthfully identify yourself.
In your scenario, while your brother needn't carry a driver's license, he must still identify himself truthfully if a police officer asks him to do so (or, at least, he can be required to do so consistent with the Constitution). This is in spite of the fact that, in your view, he is merely "breathing while in public." I am not advocating that a driver's license be required for a passenger in a car. I am saying that it's reasonable to require passengers to present some form of identification to peace officers who ask for such identification while in the course of their duties, because this is the easiest and most efficient form of identifying oneself.
Do you not expect a higher standard of competence from a man operating a ton-and-a-half piece of heavy machinery travelling at fifty miles an hour than you do of a man walking down the sidewalk? I certainly do.
I do. I expect them to be licensed to drive. Insofar as I'm concerned, I really wouldn't care if they have the license on their persons or if they merely have a license and are able to identify themselves unambiguously through some other means and allowing the officer to verify that they are, in fact, licensed to drive. Nonetheless, the requirement exists for the sake of police efficiency. Expecting someone to be licensed to drive is not the same thing, for purposes of this discussion, to
having a driver's license on their person.
Think about this scenario: Driver A is returning home from volunteering at a local orphanage. She is stopped at a stoplight. Driver B is a drunken 18-year-old whose license has been suspended. While talking on his cell-phone and exceeding the speed limit, he smashes into Driver A's car. Driver A calls the police to report the accident. When officers arrive and interview the two drivers and several bystanders, it is found that Driver A's purse has a hole in it and her license is missing. She immediately reports the license missing, but gives officers a valid US passport and a state-issued identification card, and the officers run a simple check which confirms that she is licensed to drive and has no outstanding warrants and has not been issued with a moving violation in the last 10 years. It is later found that the license is in the local orphanage, where a janitor picked it up over the course of his rounds that evening. In this scenario, Driver A is guilty of driving without a license. The accident had nothing to do with her inability to provide a license. She was licensed to drive and was obeying all traffic laws, but she has still failed to carry a driver's license while operating her car.
This hypothetical illustrates how the justification of the driving-without-license statute, insofar as you seem to assume that the justification exists, stops short of justifying the actual law on the books. The policy of requiring drivers to carry licenses while driving cannot be justified on the mere grounds that it shows that they are licensed to drive. Were this the case, Driver A would not be guilty: she was able to identify herself sufficiently clearly to allow officers to confirm that she was licensed to drive. However, because we wish to promote uniformity and hence reduce the burden on police officers of identifying drivers, we further impose the requirement that the form of identification must be a driver's license.
I think you've forgotten just how dangerous automobiles have the potential to be. "Can remember to carry a little plastic card" is not a high standard for someone I trust to operate heavy machinery.
Yeah. Clearly, Driver A is totally incompetent to drive and falls well short of the standards we expect from people driving cars.
I would still expect the man walking down the sidewalk to be able to carry the card too... but in this case, I have no legitimate interest in expecting him to present such a card on demand to prove that he does in fact have rights.
Why not? We have a social interest in making sure that people are identifiable, and asking them to carry a card is a simple and easy way of making this happen. Moreover, he must already identify himself to police officers upon request. There is no functional difference between this and asking them to present some form of identification, except that it requires them to actually have an ID on their person, and this is not a significant imposition.
