Driving - A Right or A Privilege 

Driving is an essential element to life and living today for many citizens, in particular those who can only provide all or part of the elements of sustenance of life and living. Dr. Charles Taylor eminent Social Scientist and Philosopher, resident lecturer at McGill University with accreditation and honours too numerous to mention here expresses it best in his Massey Lecture series The Malaises of Modernity, in particular in his discourse on the second of the three malaises. In a technological world the lives of all have been radically altered by a social evolutionary element which he chooses to refer to as Instrumental Reason (that the institutions and structures of industrial-technological society severely restrict our choices) to the point where

“ The society structured around instrumental reason can be seen as imposing a great loss of freedom, on both individuals and the group – because it is not just our social decisions that are shaped by these forces. An individual lifestyle is hard to sustain against the grain. For instance the design of some modern cities makes it hard to function without a car, particularly where public transport has been eroded in favour of the private automobile.”

The idea of driving as a privilege is an anachronism. Indeed the use of an an automobile or other vehicle, for most, in some fashion or another, is an outright necessity for survival especially concerning those who live in a rural setting. The concept of driving as a privilege is outdated, a reality made so by the societal context within which we all presently reside. It belongs in an era long since passed into history. It is long overdue to become a right. Indeed it is an ipso facto right requiring only official recognition and the legal status it deserves. To refer to it as a privilege rather than a right is a purely arbitrary decision which serves as a convenience for those proponents of extremism where the legislation governing dui/dwi are concerned. In this case such a definition allows policy makers to skirt the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Sanctions such as, for example, license suspensions for reasons which may have nothing to do with legal issues may be given the label "Administrative."  Such a tag means that they may pull an end run around an individual's rights.  It also means that the terms of the sanctions may have elements so ambiguous as to be subject to question by those in the legal area entrusted to scrutinize such policies involved with the rights of  the individual.  Clearly this is long overdue as an initiative which requires immediate rectification. 



Just to help illustrate the point:



In regard to the issue of DUI the Supreme Court has supported the inclusion of sections 253, 254/2/3, and 258(1)(a) of the criminal code.   This is in direct contravention to section 11(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section guarantees that a person must be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
 There is a strong suspicion in this author's mind that there is a neo-prohibitionist movement within the ranks of the special interest groups responsible for the lion's share of the lobbying special. It is subtle and long range but nevertheless, a real one. But that is another matter I will deal with in another post. The first key is to help create public awareness of these issues. After all, these groups such as "Arrive Alive" seem to have been working very hard to create a climate of negative optics towards the consumption of alcohol. It might very well be that driving is a convenient vehicle. Also the concept of cherished family members being lost and a family in tears is a powerful visual tool. It generates powerful emotion and it is within this climate that these groups find it easier to lobby for these outrageous excesses. Note the following facts not generally known to the general public:  
"The term neo-prohibitionist is usually used critically to describe groups or individuals, rather than by the groups or individuals themselves. For example, Candy Lightner, the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), eventually left the organization in anger and has since gone on to criticize it as neo-prohibitionist, stating that MADD "has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving".[1] Lightner was criticizing MADD's leaders who had called for the criminalization of all driving after drinking any amount of alcoholic beverage. The epithet has also been applied to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation by its critics due to their stance on several alcohol-related issues."