She is taking on a large potential liability, most likely larger than she is willing to pay.
That is an irresponsible thing to do it’s not putting anyone at risk
If you drive drunk you are putting other people at risk. If you speed you are. If you drive distracted.
If a friend is getting blind drunk every night and driving home i could see it reaching a point when you might consider telling the authorities, as by doing otherwise you might be causing someone’s death or injury by your inaction.
But someone driving without a license is not risking that. If the authorities arrest your friend based on your information, it has not reduced the risk of someone getting killed or injured in the slightest (it has increased the non-zero chance of your friend getting shot by the police during the arrest of course)
No, they are risking financially ruining someone, leaving them with medical bills they can’t pay, or at the very least, a repair they can’t afford.
You keep seeming to want to evade the point that is made, in order to reassert the point that you want to make, even though it doesn’t relate, much less refute, what has been said.
A person failing a criminal background check might be a perfectly low-risk proposition for a child care assistant. But you’d be fucking nuts to employ them (“because of some bureaucratic bullshit”) without knowing a LOT about what caused them to fail that background test.
If someone tells me they were convicted of child abuse solely on the word of their vindictive ex-spouse, I’m not leaving my kid with them unless I have first hand confirmation that they actually have a vindictive ex-spouse who was sleeping with the DA.
I’d apply the same logic to someone driving without a license.
We all do that whenever we do something risky in America. Own a dog? Ride a bike? Have a trampoline? Have the legal minimum liability insurance not the maximum. You are risking financially ruining someone, leaving them with medical bills you can’t pay. Thats not a reason to inform on someone to the authorities.
And it’s not morally comparable to actually endangering someone’s life
So because it’s only 99% sure that you’ll get paid that’s the same as 20% chance you will.
“Nothing is guaranteed” is the worst way to assess risk. Literally the worst. It is the root of almost all the horrifically bad decision making I have encountered in my professional and personal life.
If my dog (which I have), or my trampoline (which I don’t have) injure someone, then my homeowner’s insurance will be tapped to help to cover that. It is extremely unlikely that I injure someone on my bike (which I don’t have) enough that they face ruinous medical bills.
$25k goes a lot further than $0.
I didn’t say it was. OTOH, I wouldn’t be as cavalier about it as you are, claiming that it causes no harm to anyone else to be unlicensed and uninsured.
I didn’t say it was, but it’s also not morally perfectly fine, as you seem to be arguing.
And there’s the fact that, as an unlicensed driver who told an obvious lie as to how she lost her license, she may well be doing other things that do endanger the lives of herself or others.
Yeah this nailed me in my 20s. My license was suspended, I think for an unpaid out of state ticket from Virginia. (They love to ticket you on Virginia highways.) My dumb ass thought, well, it was suspended for 30 days, it’s been 30 days, I’m good to go! My memory is hazy on what exactly happened, but I’m guessing I didn’t realize it was still suspended until I tried to renew my license a few years later. I don’t remember specifically what happened, but I assume the DMV confiscated my old license and told me I had to get it unsuspended before I could renew it.
Honestly at this point I don’t remember the details; none of my memories make sense. What I do remember is that it was basically just bureaucratic tedium; filling out forms and paying fees and fines to get everything squared away. But it had been 2-3 years (I rarely get pulled over) so I actually had to retake the driving test like a teenager. That was embarrassing, but that’s good. Like a kid touching a hot stove, I learned.
All that to say that in your friend’s case, it’s possible there may be a bureaucratic fix, where it may cost a few hundred dollars (court fees, license renewal fee, etc…) plus a couple/few lost business days spent at the courthouse and DMV, but then she’s done and has a valid license.
How good a friend is she? Is money an issue, and if so could you float her or maybe even gift her a few hundred? It’s possible that you could deal with the situation by fixing it. Obviously, if it’s a DUI situation or a bench warrant, then no, but if it’s a “paperwork and fees” issue, well, you can fix that shit right up. Is she a close enough friend that you could approach her about this and try to help her fix it? (These are all rhetorical. And by “you” I mean your wife.)
Even if you move out of state it can catch up to you. I’ve seen people come in to court years later because they state they live in somehow found out they were suspended elsewhere. I was in court for one where it was over a decade later. The officer in charge had died tragically from a brain tumor years before. The judge was pissed. He cleared up the original change without much fuss then slammed the driver with a hefty contempt of court fine for the original failure to appear.
That was the point of this thread. If you look above a couple of posters claim not just that it’s irresponsible to drive without a license or you shouldn’t get in the car with a friend who doesn’t have a license (both statements I agree with) but that you should inform on that friend to the authorities. That is what I disagree with.
Again no I’m not, it just doesn’t cross the line of putting other road users lives at risk (at which point, by your inaction as a friend with knowledge of their actions, you are putting their lives at risk.
My two brothers and I both left Virginia in the early 1990s, drove thousands of miles away to three different states, got our card registered in those states, got drivers licenses in those states, and happily drive for at least 5 years before realizing that our licenses were invalid. Virginia suspended our original licenses (that we had surrendered) because we canceled our insurance coverage in Virginia because we had registered and insured them in our new states.
I know a guy lost his license, after he racked up multiple DWI’s and felony drug charges in several different states.
He drives still, titled his car on his ex’s name with her approval and she registered and insured it but it’s parked at his house and only he drives it.
So finally he is able to apply for a new license but is to go before a judge. The judge asks him now Mr dumbfuck do you still drink? Mr DF answered oh yeah I have a couple glasses of wine at night with dinner. Smiles! Honesty is not his strong suit so he’s trying to play it straight. Fact is despite pushing 70 he still parties like a Young whipper snapper.
Judge instantly denied his request based on his admission of still being a drinker.
But it’s not the point of the thread. It was a point that a couple people made. If you want to take issue with them, then do so, but it’s not in the OP or by most of the other participants.
What I took issue with is your claim that there is no harm done by driving without a license, and you haven’t defended that position at all.
Life is more than just about being alive. Being injured, and being out both medical and repair bills can ruin someone’s life. That is the risk that is being taken whenever an uninsured driver gets behind the wheel.
Unless you are saying that you think it’s fine to put people at that risk, then you are not arguing anything relevant to what I’ve said.
I see a poster saying you need to accumulate 12 points within some timeframe to get suspended. But I’m sure that they meant “if you pay the bloody fine” for each violation.
Not paying fines and ignoring summonses will get you suspended. Is anyone saying that’s not the case?
Nothing is 100% safe, so apparently a driver with a clean record and one with a dozen OUIs and a lifetime ban are equally safe. Because slippery slope.
I never said whether she paid the fine or not. And I suggested the possibility there might be an outstanding warrant. But several folk saw fit to maintain my friend was lying. Or that no cop ever wrote an unwarranted ticket.
Which is fine. Threads seem to take on a life of their own. I’ve never said my friend was especially responsible - or even honest. I was just a tad surprised at how readily so many folk chose to go beyond the specific question I asked to express firm opinions when they clearly lacked sufficient information.
The point is, she did not lose her license for passing an empty parked bus with its lights off. Maybe the story is more complex and you either don’t know it all or didn’t share it all, but the basic information given as to the reason for her situation doesn’t add up.
I don’t think that anyone has claimed anything but speculation as to what the whole story is, the only “firm opinions” is that we aren’t hearing the whole story.
