Saturday, December 5, 2015

Driving is a commercial activity part deux

After my first post was sent out on the boards, I had some feedback on the dates of the definitions, and the validity of them today. I guess changing what words mean so to cover their deception never crossed some peoples minds. Never the less, I figured why not show them in the statutes of today, and so we shall.

Florida statutes

322.01

(16) “Drive” means to operate or be in actual physical control of a motor vehicle in any place open to the general public for purposes of vehicular traffic.

Notice you are in control of a "motor vehicle" for purposes of "vehicular traffic".

(27) “Motor vehicle” means any self-propelled vehicle, including a motor vehicle combination, not operated upon rails or guideway, excluding vehicles moved solely by human power, motorized wheelchairs, and motorized bicycles as defined in s. 316.003.


Oh, a self propelled vehicle, well what is a vehicle?


(43) “Vehicle” means every device in, upon, or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a public highway or operated upon rails or guideway, except a bicycle, motorized wheelchair, or motorized bicycle.



Key word here is TRANSPORTED





320.01 Definitions, general.
As used in the Florida Statutes, except as otherwise provided, the term:

(1) “Motor vehicle” means:
(a) An automobile, motorcycle, truck, trailer, semitrailer, truck tractor and semitrailer combination, or any other vehicle operated on the roads of this state, used to transport persons or property, and propelled by power other than muscular power, but the term does not include traction engines, road rollers, special mobile equipment as defined in s. 316.003(48), vehicles that run only upon a track, bicycles, swamp buggies, or mopeds.
 
 
Used to TRANSPORT persons or property.
 
In the same chapter we find out that we are motor carriers...
 
(32) “Motor carrier” means any person owning, controlling, operating, or managing any motor vehicle used to transport persons or property over any public highway.
 
Notice in definition 1 that a motor vehicle was used to transport persons or property, and by doing so you then become a motor carrier.
 
Back in chapter 322.01 we find this definition
 
(32) “Passenger vehicle” means a motor vehicle designed to transport more than 15 persons, including the driver, or a school bus designed to transport more than 15 persons, including the driver.
 
316.003
 

(74) TRANSPORTATION.The conveyance or movement of goods, materials, livestock, or persons from one location to another on any road, street, or highway open to travel by the public.
(75) VEHICLE.Every device, in, upon, or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, excepting devices used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks.
 
 
Traffic - Webster's Unified Dictionary and Encyclopedia, International Illustrated Edition (1960)
1. Business or trade, commerce. 2. Transportation. 3. The movement of vehicles on street or highway, as, the traffic is very heavy today.Traffic - Bouvier's (1856)
Commerce, trade, sale or exchange of merchandise, bills, money and the like.Traffic - Black's 1st
    Commerce; trade; dealings in merchandise, bills, money, and the like.
Traffic - Black's 3rd
Commerce; trade; sale or exchange of merchandise, bills, money, and the like. The passing of goods or commodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods or money. Senior v. Ratterman, 44 Ohio St. 673, 11 N.E. 321; People v. Horan, 293 Ill. 314, 127 N.E. 673, 674; People v. Dunford, 207 N.Y. 17, 100 N.E. 433, 434; Fine v. Morgan, 74 Fla. 417, 77 So. 533, 538; Bruno v. U. S. (C.C.A.) 289 F. 649, 655.
Traffic includes the ordinary uses of the streets and highways by travelers. Stewart v. Hugh Nawn Contracting Co., 223 Mass. 525, 112 N.E. 218, 219; Withey v. Fowler Co., 164 Iowa, 377, 145 N.W. 923, 927.
Traffic - Black's 4th
Commerce; trade; sale or exchange of merchandise, bills, money, and the like. The passing of goods or commodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods or money. Senior v. Ratterman, 44 Ohio St. 673, 11 N.E. 321; Fine v. Morgan, 74 Fla. 417, 77 So. 533, 538; Bruno v. U. S. C.C.A.Mass., 289 F. 649, 655; Kroger Grocery and Baking Co. v. Schwer, 36 Ohio App. 512, 173 N.E. 633. The subjects of transportation on a route, as persons or goods; the passing to and fro of persons, animals, vehicles, or vessels, along a route of transportation, as along a street, canal, etc. United States v. Golden Gate Bridge and Highway Dist. Of California, D.C.Cal., 37 F. Supp. 505, 512.Traffic -Black's 6th
Commerce; trade; sale or exchange of merchandise, bills, money, and the like. The passing or exchange of goods or commodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods and money. The subjects of transportation on a route, as persons or goods; the passing to and fro of persons, animals, vegetables, or vessels, along a route of transportation, as along a street, highway, etc.Traffic - Florida Words & Phrases
(See Fine v. Moran, 77 So. 533, 538)
The word "traffic" is defined in Webster's New International Dictionary as follows: "To pass goods and commodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods or money; to buy or sell goods; to barter; trade." The subjects of manufacturing; producing; storing; selling, and handling any commodity are matters properly connected with the subject or traffic or trade in that commodity.



Some really good research I ran across while research this post was this quote....



In the early days of motoring, every American learned to drive without any assistance from local, state, or federal government; most learned to drive safely; and most never had any government document to identify themselves or to prove that they had ever passed any government driving test. The states of Massachusetts and Missouri were the first to establish drivers licensing laws in 1903, but Missouri had no driver examination law until 1952. Massachusetts had an examination law for commercial chauffeurs in 1907, and passed its first requirement for an examination of general operators in 1920. The first state to require an examination of driver competency was Rhode Island in 1908 (it also required drivers to have state licenses as early as 1908). South Dakota was both the last state to impose drivers licenses (1954), and the last state to require driver license examinations (1959). [6] Our contemporary belief that drivers licenses were instituted to keep incompetent drivers off the road is a false one. The vast majority of Americans who drove already knew how to drive safely. Why the state governments demanded that they have a state-issued license and pass a government test appears to be more a matter of "control" than of public safety. Why early 20th Century Americans did not resist licensure and did not see where it might lead is another question.
Personal reminiscences of many elderly Americans verify this assertion. For example, one author in VINTAGE JOURNAL wrote that "I remember when the first drivers licenses came out. They cost 50 cents and you didn't have to take a test." [7] Here are a few other comments located on the internet:
In Jefferson County, Kansas "on July 8, 1947, someone from the county seat (Oskaloosa) came to Meriden to issue driver's licenses. Anyone who was 16 years or older and paid the fee was immediately issued a drivers license. No test. The date was easy to remember because I was 16 on that day and did get my drivers license." [8] [Licenses were first required in Kansas in 1931, and driving examinations in 1949.]
During the 1930s in Georgia ... "you didn't have to take a test for driving. You sent for the permit by mail." [9] [There were no drivers licenses in Georgia until 1937, and no driving examination until 1939.]
In Missouri the gas stations sold drivers licenses -- "no test. For 25 cents, they gave you a stub -- you had this until the `real' license came in the mail." [10] [As noted, Missouri was one of the first states to require licenses (1903), but examinations were not required until 1952.]
In Washington state drivers licensing was started in 1921. "Applicant must furnish signatures of two people certifying that the person is a competent driver and has no physical problems that would impair safe driving." [11] [Driving examinations were not initiated until 1937.]
James J. Flink presents a different point of view in his book, AMERICA ADOPTS THE AUTOMOBILE (1970). In his discussion of "Licensing of Operators" (pp. 174-178) he notes that "Automobile interests were well ahead of municipal and state governments by 1902 in recognizing that the compulsory examination of all automobile operators would be desirable. ... Officials of both the American Automobile Association and the Automobile Club of America publicly advocated ... that the states should certify the basic competence of all automobile operators by requiring them to pass an examination before being allowed on the road." [12] It is clear, however, that widespread public sentiment did not exist to support these proposals. It was years before all the state governments passed such laws. In summarizing, Flink concludes that

Despite the motorist's own desire to have their competence examined [an assumption which I would challenge] and certified, state governments still remained reluctant to take adequate action at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. As of 1909, only twelve states and the District of Columbia required all automobile drivers to obtain licenses. Except for Missouri, these were all eastern states - Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia. In seven other states, only professional chauffeurs had to obtain operator's licenses - ... . The application forms for operator's licenses in these nineteen states as a rule asked for little more information than the applicant's name, address, age, and the type of automobile he claimed to be competent to drive. This might have to be notarized, but in the vast majority of these states a license to drive an automobile could still be obtained by mail. In the twelve states that all operators had to be licensed, a combined total of 89,495 licenses were issued between January 1 and October 4, 1909, but only twelve applicants were rejected for incompetency or other reasons during this period - two in Rhode Island and ten in Vermont. [13]


I recommend  reading the whole link found here

http://voluntaryist.com/articles/119a.html#.VmTnH_8QXVK
This gem was also found at the above link....Although Ford's refusal to support the private efforts of the Lincoln Highway Association stymied its attempts to build a transcontinental highway, Fisher, with the assistance of Henry B. Joy, president of Packard Motor Company, pressed on to provide marking for the entire route and to build at least one mile of experimental concrete highway in each of the states the route crossed. The test roadways were actually built in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. The efforts of the Association, though only partially successful, gave some credence to Rose Wilder Lane's statement in her 1943 book, Discovery of Freedom:
... American government should have never interfered with highways. Americans created a free, mutual association, the American Automobile Association, which was dealing with all the new questions arising from the invention of automobiles. Private enterprise originated and built the first trans-Continental highway [this statement is not true if it refers to the Lincoln Highway]; free manufacturers and car-owners would have covered this country with highways, as free Americans covered it with wagon-roads. Americans wanted cars and highways; no police force was needed to take their money from them and spend it for highways. And it is injustice to the Americans who do not own cars, to compel them to pay for highways. [37]

If American roadways had been private property, another question relating to the propriety of driver licensing would have been more easily resolved. Under common law, driving a team of horses, oxen, or mules was a matter of right. Such activities were clearly not a privilege granted to the individual by the state.
In one of the earliest decisions relating to registration and licensing, the Supreme Court of Illinois stated that the City of Chicago might regulate commercial activities, such as those engaged in by draymen, but "no reason exists why [licensing] should apply to the owners of private vehicles used for their own individual use exclusively, in their own business, or for their own pleasure, as a means of locomotion."
Anything which cannot be enjoyed without legal authority would be a mere privilege, which is generally evidenced by a license. The use of the public streets of a city is not a privilege but a right. ... A license, therefore, implying a privilege, cannot possibly exist with reference to something which is a right, free and open to all, as is the right of the citizen to ride and drive over the streets of the city without charge, and without toll, provided he does so in a reasonable manner. [38]

[38] The City of Chicago v. Lorin C. Collins, Jr. et. al., 175 Ill 445 (October 24, 1898) at pp., 456-457. The Court affirmed the illegality of the Chicago "Wheel Tax" ordinance.


we begin with the hornbook definition of a license:
A permit, granted by an appropriate governmental body, generally for a consideration, to a person, firm, or corporation to pursue some occupation or to carry on some business subject to regulation under the police power. A license is not a contract between the state and the licensee, but is a mere personal permit. Black's Law Dictionary 829 (5th ed. 1979) (citation omitted). A license fee is the consideration given for the receipt of the permit. It must be related to the government's cost for regulating the occupation or business. Northern Indiana Coin Operators Ass'n v. South Bend (1985), Ind. App., 478 N.E.2d 704, 706 (citing Ind. Code § 36-1-3-8 (1982)).http://law.justia.com/cases/indiana/supreme-court/1990/41s04-9005-cv-351-4.html

I dedicate this to the people that swear they know everything, but are still clueless.