Some of them claim to be free travelers.
The officer in question could impound your car if you cannot convince him that you have a license and are insured. Sometimes, especially in smaller centres, the officer might give you 24 hours to produce a license.
THEY ARE PLAYING THE GAME OF BEING A “SOVEREIGN CITIZEN”.
THEY WILL LOSE IN COURT OF THEY ARE IN AN ACCIDENT
Driving is considered a privilege, not a constitutional right, in the United States. While the Constitution protects the fundamental right to travel, this doesn’t inherently include the right to drive a motor vehicle. States regulate driving through licensing to ensure public safety, which is why it’s classified as a privilege.
The argument about “traveling” versus “driving” often comes from a misinterpretation of legal principles. Courts have consistently upheld that operating a motor vehicle on public roads requires a valid license, as it’s subject to state regulation for the greater good of public safety, i.e. to keep the intoxicated, non-skilled off the road.
I’ve seen a lot of those YouTube videos, they claim to be sovereign citizens not subject to laws of the area they are “traveling” through instead of driving, they get sucked in by some YouTube person selling the idea and certain people buy in which always ends up with them getting dragged out of the car usually with the window smashed
The whole Sovereign Citizen scam is gobbledegook. Good way to win a pair of steel bracelets.
When pulled over, he stated his name and the license number he had memorized. The cop had to write it down and look it up on the computer or call it in.
Somewhat obnoxious, but if the requirement is "have a valid license" vs. "must carry it" he could not be cited for failure to have a valid license.
I could be wrong, but wasn’t Timothy McVey pulled over because he didn’t think he needed to have license plates?
Cops use the plate readers to identify cars registered to drivers who have outstanding warrants, especially for accumulating fines. Yes, they run the plate without a warrant. They can even set the program to not bother flagging a plate attached to a driver with let's say, less than $1,000 in outstanding fines. If the image on the computer screen looks like the driver, they'll pull you over because their municipality/agency gets a significant cut of the revenue.
If the picture on their computer screen doesn't match the driver, they likely won't risk pulling them over because they had no probable cause and again, they have no warrant.
If you don't have your license on you, and are not the registered owner of the vehicle, they can run your name and address which will show your photo as well as if you have any warrants. They don't like to be inconvenienced but they can't charge you for driving without a license when they had all the information at their fingertips.
“No comprende English gringo. Asylum.”
That works in sanctuary states.
But every state I have ever lived in requires a driver’s license, Insurance, and registration to be produced while driving on public roads. It’s part of the civil code, or criminal code depending.
On the police show ‘On Patrol: Live’ people are pulled over in nearly every episode who don’t have a driver’s license or insurance. The police can check DMV records to see if the driver has a license — if they can positively identify them by other means.
I always thought driver’s licenses were stupid anyway. The test (in the U.S., not in Europe) is a joke. If you just allowed anyone over 18 to drive at will, I doubt you’d notice any real difference in the crash statistics.
Thus, future DLs will be coded to your vehicle?
You’ll lose and they’ll win if it comes to that.
I don’t care for some of the power-tripping authoritarian stuff I see from *some* cops, but anyone who doesn’t produce a valid license upon request needs a good Rodney King style beat-down and a few months with three hots and a cot.
When I worked in LE I saw more people coming to jail for driving without a valid license than anything else. Those people who were arrested were the ones who already had their license revoked, suspended or rescinded and had already been warned to not drive, so they were a small subset of the people who didn’t have a valid license, yet still they managed to account for more arrests than any other crime. Take away a driver’s license and people will still continue to drive.
I went 7 years deliberately not carrying my license, it had nothing to do with this stuff though, it was because I discovered that cops would usually drop the infraction that made them pull you over and just settle for making you show your license to a judge by writing that non-moving violation ticket.
America used to be more casual.
It’s incredibly ironic that they somehow will, in the same breath, claim that codes and regulations ‘aren’t law’ then proceed to quote UCC, Uniform Commercial Code.
They’ll also assert that such as enacted by the legislatures of the various states only apply to commercial transport and don’t apply to people ‘travelling in their private capacity.’ They’ll frequently misquote SCOTUS cases and bizarrely state supreme court cases outside the jurisdiction of the state where the decision was made.
They turn minor infractions into misdemeanor and felony convictions, assert that the court has no jurisdiction over them even while in cuffs, and ultimately, when they start serving the inevitable jail time (for tickets that few judges would even consider jail time for), they’ll attempt to use the legal system to punish those who rightly followed the laws they disdain.
Ultimately, they somehow believe they’ve cracked some secret code and believe all of us are idiots for following the laws when we don’t have to.
My favorite is when they play word games... “I’m not here to represent (pronounced Re present) myself, I’m here to present myself” or “I do not stand under, I stand above and overstand what you’re saying.” Or “I am not the ALL CAPS entity, I am the living man... I present the ALL CAPS entity for custody of the court” (and hands over their birth certificate...)
Police take great care when stopping a Sovereign. They have often leaped out of their vehicles with a blazing AK.
The ones that make their way into online video are more dirt road lawyers who have embraced a more private life and want to really really be left alone.
Thanks for the answers. Most of these cases that I’ve seen on X involve the driver being evasive for whatever reason and the police have pulled them over for a decent reason like speeding or seat belt.’
The very act of claiming they don’t need a license and refusal to give their name seems like suspicious activity and the next step when police want them to get out and be detained sets off resisting which escalates to arrests. Sometimes the video give more details of a violation like drugs discovered or suspended license. Some just escalate to arrest for no good reason cause they’re dicks.
If they qualified as good enough to put on X for some reason it’s not because things were settled in a civil manner.
This is the whole “sovereign citizen” crap.
Let me pose this question: Do you think the driver of an 18 wheeler should have to prove they have the proper training to drive the tractor? If that is true, where does the ability to prove that you can operate safely without putting others in danger go from a requirement to a suggestion?
The constitution details a group of “freedoms”. All of them are personal freedoms. None of them allow you to act in a way that puts others in danger. None of them are dependent on using roads and highways that are built and maintained by the community.
Just get a license and follow the rules.