USA is heading down this road, too. 21 states will suspend your driver's license if you fall behind on student debt. This is ass backwards and destructive thinking. I am certain this is just the start of greater restrictions on the unfortunate.
In California you can't even register your vehicle if you're behind on your child support payments. (I need my job to make payments. I can't get to my job without my car.)
But say, if he hadn't been sent to prison, would he have paid child support then?
We all don't know, but I strongly suspect no, and I strongly suspect the court has more than just my suspicions and calibrated its reaction accordingly.
The amount could have been ordered to be taken from his bank account, or confiscated from his salary directly from his employer or payment system, or taken from his property.
There's absolutely nothing that necessitates that he is sent to prison if he merely can't pay.
Only if he has money and doesn't pay (and that after accounting for his food and rent expenses at a nominal minimal fee), or hides money that he could have used to pay.
Market solutions and the Justice system rarely intersect, and this is certainly an area where they should not.
Well, in these cases, courts shouldn't and mustn't do it. If the law says that, it's a bad law.
There are people who think in very different terms, where the primary goal is protecting a moral norm they have in mind, and the focus (possibly even "obsession") is going to be doing that by exacting a punishment as a disincentive and example. Taking away a privilege is an obvious choice. Whether it's related is unimportant; what's important is whether it hurts. If the cascading effects are considered at all to someone who thinks like this (and I want to stress here that involves a level of analysis that may be second nature for you but is quite likely actually a stretch for many of the people I'm talking about here) then those cascading effects may well be considered good: the fact of making a debt less likely to be repaid is secondary to making it harder for the subject deserving of the punishment. The pain is the point.
Now, you might respond "is there evidence that this kind of punitive approach actually leads to overall better outcomes?" And that's a very good question, but again, it's the kind of question someone who cautiously approaches the question of punishment with considerations of counterproductivity in mind would ask.
But that's just me.
But I think it's probably a values/temperament issue, which isn't necessarily an intelligence issue, and might need different solutions.
In a country that values punishment over any empirical improved outcomes, I wouldn’t hold my breath for people to care that taking a driver’s license away for unpaid support will end up hurting the children involved, or society as a whole.
Sure, not meeting your responsibilities has to be dealt with and have consequences, but the consequences shouldn't have to be catastrophic and put you into an unrecoverable situation to act as a deterrent.
In a country made for a car drivers it seems like a kind of an essential privilege.
It would probably be better if the phrase were "a grant not a right" or "a license not a right", but I guess that's not as catchy.
Plus it's more expensive for the government, causes more pollution, generates more danger, and hurts people's health. Not a lot of upside there.
I don't think I agree with the "most" in that statement, at least in combination with "barely an issue".
Admittedly I'm far from an expert in this, but I live in Germany now, have visited a bunch of countries in Europe, plus Japan, and that's certainly the impression I get. Right now our family of 3 living in a sleepy part of Munich gets by fine without a car, and we've visited lots of little suburbs and towns in Germany that are still highly walkable/bikable, with decent transit connections.
Not that having a car wouldn't be a big convenience bonus for us sometimes, but it doesn't feel critical at all.
Try getting to a different province/city etc, easily 30-100km away or more on "public transit".
Even where the connections are there (and not like a couple of buses each day), it's neither fast nor pleasant enough to make driving "unneeded".
> Try getting to a different province/city etc, easily 30-100km away or more on "public transit".
I seriously considered commuting from Augsburg to Munich by train. Some of my co-workers do this. It's actually not that bad, train ride is about half an hour for 50km. Faster than driving, that's for sure.
Unless your destination is in some rural village that is not reachable by train/bus, like closest bus stop is 5 km away you don't need a car, it is more convenient sure but not essential.
I have colleagues at work that are from small towns 100+km they rent a flat in the city here and go home on weekends, by train or car.
Commute wise they are all part of same region while legally they are different cities. I don't think that's extremely uncommon arrangement in some larger cities in Europe.
Plus, who said people in the developed countries don't commute, or that even if they have public transport, having to and waste extra hour or hours in many cases (to wait at stops and to change buses or subway lines, etc), is small matter in the extra effort, free time, and health impact on the person doing it compared to being able to just drive there?
Not everybody in Europe lives in Amsterdam or some such city, nicely close to walking distance or a single public transit line to work.
Don't do the thing that gets your license revoked? And if it happens, get a different job?
> Plus, who said people in the developed countries don't commute, or that even if they have public transport, having to and waste extra hour or hours in many cases (to wait at stops and to change buses or subway lines, etc), is small matter in the extra effort, free time, and health impact on the person doing it compared to being able to just drive there?
Well, if it's just convenience, then that seems to fit the definition of privilege, no?
> Not everybody in Europe lives in Amsterdam or some such city, nicely close to walking distance or a single public transit line to work.
This is a ridiculous strawman. You don't need to live in a major world city to have effective non-driving commute options around.
There are some comments that make me think "I want to see all these things happen to that person, to see how casually they'll dismiss the problem then, and if they'll ever figure out what empathy means".
Really makes you wish those people losing their car and their job, because they fell behind on some student debt payment, and being unable to rise out of it. Add perhaps a few problems real people in those situations (which for them are dismissed as mere "personal failings) have, like spouses or parents or kids to take care of, some personal sickness, and so on. Maybe experiencing real life will help do with the smugness?
>Well, if it's just convenience, then that seems to fit the definition of privilege, no?
Being able to laugh away the pain of people in such situations (because you never were close to that, or have safety nets all around) fits the definition of privilege better.
Try taking it to the logical conclusion - what else is a privilege, and can therefore be arbitrarily denied? A bank account? Traveling by plane or train? Connecting your house to the power/water/sewage grid? Having a post address? Buying or renting a house? Sending your children to school? If you buy this logic, there's a whole bunch of 'privileges' that the state can deny you using some excuse, that would make living utterly impossible.
That the state takes away this right doesn't mean you should call it a privilege, just as you wouldn't call freedom a privilege because an innocent man was jailed.
[1] https://www.quora.com/Who-determined-that-driving-is-a-privi...
That's just a BS saying, not some rule of nature.
Societies should define what is a privilege and what is a right.
Do you think if there was a referendum on this specific matter (and not tied to 200 other policy questions, like general elections are), people would vote that "yeah, indeed driving is a privilege"?
That's a hard no. I see where you're going with this, and we likely agree on 90% of this topic anyway, but the issue with society defining rights is that you end up letting the mob decide the "right" of green eyed people to live has just become a privilege.
Rights stem from nature, and exist with, or without society. If a society wants to add to the list, they're more than welcome to do so. Those are usually called privileges and its up to the society to attach proper protections to them.
That's what those in power try to sell, who think they know better, and that the people are savage animals that need to be kept in place.
In reality, the worse atrocities have been performed not by mobs, or at least not by mobs on their own, but by well educated, powerful people. All those gentlemen slave owners in the South, all those smooth talking Nazi higher ups (with support from Germanys financial elites), the higher echelons of USSR Party power, colonial gentlemen, and so on. Mobs have nothing on them.
>Rights stem from nature, and exist with, or without society.
There are no rights in nature -- something anyone who ventures outside of society (in a jungle, in the woods, etc) will very soon find out. Nobody in nature (outside of a human community) will ever protect their live to live, property, or anything else.
Rights are a social contract, made because man is a conscious, social, animal. The problem is that the contract is more often than not, presented like Terms of Use, already written from those in power.
Or explain what it would mean for rights to exist outside of a society?
The only thing keeping then "unalienated" is actual people, with guns and jails, etc, to prevent others from alienating them.
And even so, those people keep unalienated whatever they're ordered to keep by those who pay their salaries. In practice those rights have been alienated time and again, whenever those wanted it.
That isn't to say I don't think certain rights should be held as universal, or that some aren't worth dying for, I certainly do.
I just think there isn't a facet of human society that is not, in fact, ultimately a human invention (within the constraints of the pressures evolution has wired into our brains, like proscriptions on incest.)
And, frankly, we should all be proud of what we can build, as a species.
It seems you're only considering legal rights, possibly because natural rights are difficult to justify from a secular perspective.
The thought experiment I'd run is, just like the one of science vs religion: start from scratch, look for the rights that every society has in common.
Property? Nope. Freedom of speech, association, whatever? Nope. The one I think might be universal would be the right to marry someone; I can't think of ever reading about a society where the right to marry and start a family was not a part of it. (Which we also don't really recognize as an explicit right anywhere in modern society, do we?)
There are societies (studied by ethnologists) that don't marry -- the children are raised by the community.
And maybe there isn't anything universal to societies that's considered as "right".
Sort of opposite -- things forbidden -- I've heard from some biologist that the only universally forbidden behavior (no society has ever generally permitted it) is incestuous relationships.
Everything else, you'd find some society somewhere that's okay with it.
That makes sense from a biological perspective, too, that we as a species would be hard-wired not to allow it. That might be as close as an "in nature" thing as you might find, something our brains are hard-wired to discourage.
That the concept is... not trivial to defend, in these our modern times, and further that it may not have much practical use beyond its value in propaganda (which is real and shouldn't be dismissed and, I suppose, is furthered by the sort of education above) isn't really covered.
I think it's more accurate to say that rights (in the original setting) are a list of things that the law cannot prohibit you.
I guess we're not applying the tenth amendment here? As in, we have rights not explicitly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
Poor people deal with obstacles that people with means never even think about. For example, Florida just voted to restore voting rights to felons and now the state legislature is attempting to change the will of the voting public to state that only felons that have all court costs and fines paid can vote.
Public defenders are another example, if you are poor and charged with a crime your defense is worth ~30 minutes of a low paid attorney's time which results in higher fines and/or jail time and the cycle continues.
But what if you don't have auto debt? That logic doesn't work if someone bought a car they could afford.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/01/03/the-nu...
I dunno, having an owned-outright used beater seemed normal among my peer group when I was in/just out of college; having newer, better (relative to contemporaries) vehicles with financing is more common now that we're very well into careers. You can get a student loan with no credit history at pretty much the same terms as everyone else, but that is decidedly not he case for auto loans.
Specifically, it looks like several states exempt from testing cars from the mid 90s and older. Lots of those still on the road.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_Unit...
That said, this will move the needle for almost 50% of that population. Student debt is already non-dischargeable, and delinquencies are hitting record highs every quarter. Creditors are just trying to collect any way they can.
There's a lot of factors at work: the cost of education is insane, student loans are very easy to get, there is a ton of pressure to go to college, it's hard to think long term when you're 18, financial literacy is poor through high school, etc.
This is article is a good (albeit small) overview of the size of the issue: https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/13/us-debt-rate-auto-...
This is America. So the answer is almost certainly: "Yes, you need your car to reach work."
rephrasing:
95% of Americans take private transit to get to work. I would call that an almost certainty that you need a car.
5% is huge.
How much of the country is that, again?
What's that ratio in the places where it isn't?
EDIT: I'm somewhat heartened to see some movement against this practice: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2019/03/04/student-...
I can't find anything on this. I can find 22 states that can suspend some kind of state issued license if you fall behind on your student loan debt, but only 2 that say they can suspend your driver's license, and apparently those 2 don't really do it very often.
I think you misread an article talking about professional licenses.
How are those two connected?!
And what if you need to have a car to ...keep a job and pay your debt (seeing that many cities are built for cars, and not everyone has the luxury to live close to work, or even have a basic public transport).
Might as well suspend your license if you owe money to the mafia.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/business/student-loans-li... - insane.
Unfortunately, much of the US is car dependent, so taking away someone's license is net counterproductive because one's income typically would decrease beyond the savings without their car.
In many areas, cities are cutting bus service to poor areas. The city I used to live in removed all but one route which left stranded or made transportation very difficult for a lot of people. The city I live in now simply cancelled their entire bus program.
The war on poverty doesn't mean what a lot of administrators think it means.
I agree, which is why I said taking away someone's license is net counterproductive.
Also, I'm not suggesting that people should become cyclists, just that driving is expensive.
Ultimately, these are just bandaids for low-density areas, greater density is needed to make the US livable without long distance commuting.
The main problem for commuting efficiency is housing and barrier of entry for getting a job close to where I live or vice versa.
It might help distance, but it usually doesn't do much to help time.
It's always cringy when bike activists just assume that everybody can get to work on a bike fast and without sweating.
Yes, if they started now, many could do that in a few months.
But the whole discussion tends to veer into fat shaming real quick.
> It's always cringy when bike activists just assume that everybody can get to work on a bike fast and without sweating.
My experience is that people tend to have an inaccurate view of what bike activists believe. I think few would say that most people can switch to cycling without major issues.
As for sweating, my experience is that cyclists tend to argue that some sweating is acceptable, not that people won't sweat. I can recall some people discussing how to reduce how much you sweat to a minimum, but I can't recall anyone claiming that you won't sweat at all.
> But the whole discussion tends to veer into fat shaming real quick.
Having participated in and observed many conversations about cycling, I can't recall that happening once. Can you point out an example?
https://daliaresearch.com/the-countries-with-the-longest-and...
But in any case, it doesn't seem to contradict anything that I said.
I just tend to get a bit suspicious when problems are described as being particular to the US or worse in the US than in other places. I find that in many cases that is just not true. So I tend to poke around and see what I can see.
In the case of many other countries, like Japan or Germany, most people's commutes can be accomplished reasonably efficiently with public transportation (often public transportation is even faster due to traffic).
Reread my post, as I don't think you're responding to what I wrote. I don't advocate taking away someone's license because of debts, which I believe I made clear in the last paragraph.
Maybe somethings could help sometimes and are net counterproductive other times.
Maybe some ideas could help in one aspect but are net counterproductive when considered as a whole.
I didn't read a contradiction in the parent post.
I don't know what you mean by "Please don't ruin people's lives with your ideas" if you were not referring to taking away someone's license because of debt. As I stated, I don't believe someone should lose their drivers' license because of debt.
What is the idea I have that would ruin peoples' lives?
I'm probably not alone in reading it that way, and I'd say many of us would be offended.
What I meant was this: Driving is expensive, so one might argue that removing one's ability to drive would help them save money, but that doesn't work when a drivers' license is needed to generate income in the first place.
With that said I would prefer if the municipalities were more bike friendly in the first place. I like driving, but I was certainly happiest when I lived in a different town and could bike to work.
Also, I know an engineer who works on diesel engines in Detroit and commutes by bike. He seems to think Detroit is pretty good for cycling, actually, contrary to what I expected. Don't know about metro Detroit, though.
I'd love it if there as a pan-Southeast-Michigan light rail to happen, but doesn't seem realistic with all the other infrastructure issues Michigan is having right now. Best we can hope for right now is that Q line gets extended out from downtown Detroit up to Royal Oak or Birmingham, but even that is a whole can of worms that Dan Gilbert would have to push for for there to be a chance at it.
Obviously, I need to point out that in many ways we're not like China, and plenty of people who get fired, commit crimes, lose their drivers licenses, default on debt, ect. live happy and prosperous lives.
Also, how does the DMV know what someone’s debt history is?
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/Feds-take-o...
I also want the government out of the educational loan business and think that some of the financial risk should be borne by the educational institutions.
Making educational loans dischargeable in bankruptcy sounds reasonable on the surface but it problematic when you consider that a newly minted college graduate basically has no assets. Allowing the loan to be dischargeable would encourage graduates to immediately declare bankruptcy to get rid of their student loans. Not sure what the solution is there other than not making the risky loan in the first place.
Also the Federal government used to guarantee the debt. Now they finance it directly. They were always the ones on the hook.