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From: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: national driver's license
Message-ID: <1078@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-May-84 20:58:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.1078
Posted: Wed May  9 20:58:40 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 12-May-84 12:08:43 EDT
References: <742@pyuxa.UUCP> <2782@rabbit.UUCP>
Reply-To: barryg@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Barry Gold)
Organization: System Development Corporation, Santa Monica
Lines: 27

Once upon a time Belgium did not have any drivers license requirement.
(And as far as I know, they didn't have any insurance requirement either--
at least none more than California does--that is, if you got into an
accident you were responsible.)

In the early 70s, Belgium finally enacted a drivers license law--with a
grandfather's clause such that anyone who could prove hesh had ever driven
a car in Belgium before the law was enacted would never need to meet any
standards in order to have a lifetime drivers license

When we were in Belgium, we found the general level of driving to be
loathsome.  (Of course, it doesn't help that Brussels sidewalks are not
terribly distinct from the streets:  they're differently patterned sets
of cobblestones which slope slightly upward.)  People parked in the streets
and pased one another in the parking lane.  No one seemed to be concerned
for pedestrians.  That was only a year or so after the minimal drivers
license law was enacted, though.  Things may have improved since then.

Note that these observations are somewhat against my prejudices.
I would far prefer to be able to say that government coercion in such areas
was unnecessary.

--Lee Gold
-- 
	Barry Gold/Lee Gold
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