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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

I agree, except for the prison time part: NYC’s prisons are more or less torture sites[1], and we really don’t need to send more people to be tortured.

Driving a car is a privilege that can and should be rescinded, especially in a city where so many alternatives exist.

[1]: https://apnews.com/article/rikers-island-new-york-city-006c6...

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  ...especially in a city where so many alternatives exist.

For what it's worth, this proposal affects the state, not the city. The state with regions where it's not abnormal to get 6+ feet of snow per year.

I don't disagree with the sentiment, just pointing out that it's a bit more complex than telling people to use alternate transportation.

Thanks for pointing that out. That does indeed make it harder to establish a policy of confiscation for repeated offenses.

Outside of major cities, driving really is a necessity. Revoking someone’s license is effectively revoking their right to work and all that comes with it (shelter, food, healthcare, etc). Of course, that should make people think twice about the crime, and it probably deters a fair few people from reckless driving, but for the remainder it just makes them unproductive citizens with little to lose.

We should probably either consider driving to be a bit more than a revocable privilege or improve alternative transport options (or consider right to food, shelter, and healthcare human rights).

Your modification of tokai's suggestion reverts it to what we have now, and that is not working very well.

Not really. Take away their license, impound their vehicle if they continue to drive it, and then sell it to pay their fines if they fail to do so.

Yes, really, with respect to your original post. You have just added vehicle impounding as an alternative measure to fix it.

This is a weirdly adversarial reading: “rescinded” doesn’t have to stop at their driver’s license.

It is a very straightforward reading... Incidentally, I have responded to the impounding option on an adjacent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36970547

Sounds like a good argument for prison reforms, not making dangerous driving a consequence free crime.

Sure, but then why not first make sure that the prison reform happens before sending people to the torture place?

I think it’s a good argument for both. We’re not going to imprison people indefinitely for dangerous driving, and prisons are not driving schools.

If they can’t be trusted to drive safely, then they shouldn’t be allowed to drive. We have simpler (cheaper, more humane, etc.) ways to do that than putting them in a cage.

Then what do you do if they keep driving after you take the licence?

Impound their vehicle?

that's a start but you might need to impound their money too if they keep using it to buy replacements

Personally, I think that would be a reasonable response, but there might be problems in practice. The driver may well not be the owner, or will lose their job and that will put their family on welfare... One can reasonably say "you should have thought of that", but in practice, the courts seem reluctant to act in such cases.

This is your daily reminder that the proposed law is a New York State law, not just an NYC law. It would apply much wider than just NYC.

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