Common law

[Johnson34u55i]

Jurisdiction

US Federal Law

Is it our right to travel? Is driving not the same as traveling? Do we have to have a drivers license and registration on our vehicle if we choose to use it for travel and not Comercial or business use?

 

[adjusterjack]

Troll alert. The lunatic fringe has arrived.

I will nip this in the bud by quoting an attorney's explanation from another site and then I hope you will just go away.

Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit court of appeals has held that the state cannot require registration of a vehicle in order for that vehicle to be operated on the roads in that state. There are groups and individuals out there with web sites, etc., claiming that the states cannot require citizens to have driver's licenses, vehicle registrations, etc., but the arguments on which they rely are terrible. Those arguments might sound good to a non lawyer, but to lawyers and judges the arguments they make are pretty much frivolous. You won't win this on a right to travel argument. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the circuit that covers California, for example rejected a claim that there is a fundamental right to drive a car and that the state's refusal to grant a driver's license violated his right to travel:

We have previously held that burdens on a single mode of transportation do not implicate the right to interstate travel. See Monarch Travel Servs., Inc. v. Associated Cultural Clubs, Inc., 466 F.2d 552, 554 (9th Cir.1972) ("A rich man can choose to drive a limousine; a poor man may have to walk. The poor man's lack of choice in his mode of travel may be unfortunate, but it is not unconstitutional."); City of Houston v. FAA, 679 F.2d 1184, 1198 (5th Cir.1982) ("At most, [the air carrier plaintiffs'] argument reduces to the feeble claim that passengers have a constitutional right to the most convenient form of travel. That notion, as any experienced traveler can attest, finds no support whatsoever in [the Supreme Court's right of interstate travel jurisprudence] or in the airlines' own schedules."). The Supreme Court of Rhode Island in Berberian v. Petit, 118 R.I. 448, 374 A.2d 791 (1977), put it this way:

The plaintiff's argument that the right to operate a motor vehicle is fundamental because of its relation to the fundamental right of interstate travel is utterly frivolous. The plaintiff is not being prevented from traveling interstate by public transportation, by common carrier, or in a motor vehicle driven by someone with a license to drive it. What is at issue here is not his right to travel interstate, but his right to operate a motor vehicle on the public highways, and we have no hesitation in holding that this is not a fundamental right.

374 A.2d at 794 (citations and footnotes omitted).

Miller does not have a fundamental "right to drive." In Dixon v. Love, 431 U.S. 105, 112-16, 97 S.Ct. 1723, 52 L.Ed.2d 172 (1977), the Supreme Court held that a state could summarily suspend or revoke the license of a motorist who had been repeatedly convicted of traffic offenses with due process satisfied by a full administrative hearing available only after the suspension or revocation had taken place. The Court conspicuously did not afford the possession of a driver's license the weight of a fundamental right. See also Mackey v. Montrym, 443 U.S. 1, 10, 99 S.Ct. 2612, 61 L.Ed.2d 321 (1979); Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 539, 542-43, 91 S.Ct. 1586, 29 L.Ed.2d 90 (1971).

In sum, Miller does not have a fundamental right to drive a motor vehicle, and the DMV did not unconstitutionally impede his right to interstate travel by denying him a driver's license.Miller v. Reed, 176 F.3d 1202 (9th Cir.1999).

The same rationale applies here. You do not have a fundamental right to drive a motor vehicle and the state may place various restrictions and requirements in order to drive on the roads, including the requirement that your vehicle must be registered. Those requirements and restrictions do not violate your right to travel. As this is the current state of the case law in the Ninth Circuit, you will lose trying to make a right to travel argument here.

(Or anywhere else in the US for that matter.)

To put it very simply, yes, you have a Constitutionally guaranteed right to free travel. However, you do NOT have any Constitutionally guaranteed right to operate a motor vehicle on the public roadways. That is a privilege regulated and restricted by the government (lawfully and with Constitutionally sound authority). Your Constitutionally protected right to free travel is not impeded by regulating your operation of a motor vehicle – you can still walk, swim, take public transportation, skateboard, pogo stick, or canoe your way to your destination.

The case law on the subject is very clear: the state may constitutionally require a person to have his/her vehicle registered and that he/she have a driver's license to drive on the roads of that state. Every state has such laws, and if you violate them, you won't win in court arguing these requirements violate your constitutional right to travel.

Goodbye.

 

[army judge]

Is it our right to travel? Is driving not the same as traveling? Do we have to have a drivers license and registration on our vehicle if we choose to use it for travel and not Comercial or business use?

We have no rights, mate.

We ALL are slaves to the ROYALS who rule us.

All hail our overlords!!!!

 

[adjusterjack]

Until we decide to rise up and cast off our shackles.

"Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot..."