Driver License Silliness

Ever wonder where some of the out-and-out weird ideas that people bring into court come from?

Go watch this video on YouTube about how none of us are required to have drivers' licenses because we're "travelers" not "drivers."  It even gets more fun if you read through the comments:

This video also served as a tool to show how many people will jump to citing codes, statues, laws, etc. To say this video is wrong. This indicates as we have expected. Most Americans allow others to ASSUME authority over them. Those that write the codes, statutes, laws etc. have come to understand that the slaves will accept anything as long as it's called a "code", "statute", "law", "ordinance" .. etc.

Hmmm . . . not sure I like where this train of thought logically leads.  If laws passed by a legislature aren't valid because they are imposed, I'm not sure what could qualify as a rule we must follow. After all, the people who wrote the constitution weren't even an elected legislature. And if we go further back to things that the Constitution was based on, like the Great Charter, the signatories were nobles who weren't even appointed by people who had been elected. And if you assume that the Magna Carta was not valid then none of us freemen have any individual right not to be arbitrarily imposed upon by our leaders. We're no better than serfs and should be so by this line of reasoning.

Moving on . . .

I can't speak for other States but in Virginia a driver's license is specifically defined:

§ 46.2-100. Definitions.

"Driver's license" means any license, including a commercial driver's license as defined in the Virginia Commercial Driver's License Act (§ 46.2-341.1 et seq.), issued under the laws of the Commonwealth authorizing the operation of a motor vehicle. 

And the penalty for not getting a license is also specifically defined:

§ 46.2-300. Driving without license prohibited; penalties.

No person, except those expressly exempted in §§ 46.2-303 through 46.2-308, shall drive any motor vehicle on any highway in the Commonwealth until such person has applied for a driver's license, as provided in this article, satisfactorily passed the examination required by § 46.2-325, and obtained a driver's license, nor unless the license is valid.

A violation of this section is a Class 2 misdemeanor. A second or subsequent violation of this section is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Upon conviction under this section, the court may suspend the person's privilege to drive for a period not to exceed 90 days.

Of course, you could still try the old "I was a traveler, not a driver" line, but I'm pretty sure that the judge is going to fall back on the normal, accepted definition of "drive":

Transitive Verb

4 a : to direct the motions and course of (a draft animal)

b : to operate the mechanism and controls and direct the course of (as a vehicle) 

Intransitive Verb

2 a : to operate a vehicle

b : to have oneself carried in a vehicle

Pretty sure that a judge is going to apply all of three seconds of thought before he decides that operating and directing a vehicle is driving.