Did any jurisdictions in the US require a person to be of a certain age before he/she could, say, ride around on horseback; or, say, conduct a horse and carriage?
Further, did any jurisdictions require any for of permission to “drive”? Which is to say, could one who continually drove his horse & buggy recklessly or drunk or whatever find himself forbidden from “driving”?
There were rules governing how horses and carriages could be ridden, usually within cities. President Grant was once arrested and fined $20 for riding a horse to fast in DC.
And there is no need to quote “driving” in the thread title. It is perfectly correct to speak of driving a horse or a team of horses. The term was used loooong before the automobile was even a gleam in Daimler’s eye.
The problem was that a horseless carriage could go much faster than a horse, and did not have the smarts a horse had to try to avoid obstacles in the road or along the side of the road. There are old stories that mention that a driver could fall asleep or be completely inebriated, and the horse would get the carriage home just fine. It was only with automobiles that the driver’s undivided attention was needed. Carriages especially - you could only run a horse a short distance before it needed to severely rest and get water. You were lucky if your carriage got above a brisk walk for any distance.
( I recall one old novel where the one fellow determined what his son/servant whatever had been up to, because his horse wanted t go a different way; so he let the horse lead, and it took the guy to some woman’s house.)
Not in the US, but one of the early Caesars (Julius or Augustus) is said to have prohibited the use of chariots in the city of Rome during the daytime, due to the noise. (Though why he would prefer that noise at night, when people were trying to sleep, is beyond me.)
So regulation of driving is at least 2000 years old.
Most people think of locomotion on a horse as riding one, not driving it.
Really? There are plenty of sayings about carts, and carriage driving has become modestly popular. And carts, carriages, stagecoaches, buggies, and other horse-drawn vehicles are well-known from period dramas. Think of all those westerns!