Q: Who isn't required to have a Driver's License?

A: Queen Elizabeth!

Here is an interesting article about HRH QE II, focusing on her cars and her driving:

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You can drive a tractor in Illinois without a license.

Her and I miss the Sears catalog we used to use on the driver’s seat to boost us up a little. Back in the 60’s there used to be some confusion in the law about whether a license was needed for a bike with a Whizard motor on it, a mo ped with pedals, or a go kart. It was clarified for me though and I still think they were wrong. They expanded their legal interpretation so that even a wheel chair with a motor is a motor vehicle. Same folks that decided that a BB gun is a fire arm.

Laws are becoming much more restrictive for a great deal of every day life. In the 1960s here in Mississippi anything considered ‘farm equipment,’ even trucks, could be driven on secondary roads by 13 year olds who demonstrated their ability to control the equipment. But at that time there were no dual wheel 4 wheel drive tractors that covered 2 lanes and could reach 35 mph.

I tried to search for current regulations and found page after page of legalese with the likely intent of discouraging kids from driving on the highway and specifically mentioning that ATVs would not be considered agricultural equipment. When life was simpler law enforcement turned a blind eye to me driving a delivery truck carrying groceries from door to door when I was 13.

I’ve seen some kids during wheat harvest around here who drive 2 ton bobtails and can barely see over the dash. They must be sitting on a pillow with wood blocks on the pedals…

There’s some kind of legal loophole here in Calif that makes it possible to not have to license your car. If you play your cards right, in Calif you don’t need no stinkin’ license plates. I’m not sure how it works, but I see cars without license plates all the time. In some cases the same car for years and years, parked on the street even, no license plates front or back. It’s commonly known Silicon Valley lore that Steve Job’s car (Apple Computer) never had license plates.

The discussion is about whether or not a driver’s license is required, not about whether plates are required or not

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Used to be that in Montana you could drive any kind of motorized vehicle on a public road if it was for immediate farm use. Meaning that I, as a 12 year old boy, was legally sent on a 20 mile drive in a F600 dump truck to the grain elevator and back to drop a load of wheat.

Also used to be you could drink beer while driving.

Man, 12 years old? I wish I would have lived in Montana. That would have been great. I should go have a talk with the judge again but I think he’s dead now anyway.

I drove my grandfather’s ‘farm truck’ when I was 13 years old. As long as the truck had ‘farm truck’ painted at the bottom of the driver’s door…you were good to go and go I went. I drove it to town and back every weekend which was a round trip of 24 miles.

I learned to drive when I was 12 years old in NY State. In very rural NY State, and things were different back then.
Of course, the fact that I was already 6’ tall and 200 pounds at 12 may have been the reason I was never stopped.

Illegals don’t need a driver’s license :slight_smile:

Many states it use to be you could drive at any age as long as you were on your own property. I started driving an old VW bug as 13. Just around our 14+ acres. Mom would freak out, but dad didn’t mind. Not sure what the laws are now. I’d be surprised if states had any jurisdiction on who/what you drove on your own property.

When I was 16 I got a learners permit. then 7 months later I got my license.

Here in NH we don’t have a learners permit. At 15 1/2 you can start driving with a licensed driver who’s 21 or over. The caveat to that is you can’t leave the state. All 3 of my kids went to private high-schools in MA, so they couldn’t drive to school like a lot of their friends. Once they got their license they could.

Many people that lose their license due to DUI are permitted to operate a motorized bicycle without license.

I’m not sure about that. Certainly not in Minnesota. A few years ago a guy had gotten a DUI for driving his motorized easy chair from the bar home in Duluth. They even confiscated his chair and sold it on him. Then there have been reports of a couple guys driving their lawn mower from the bar and getting arrested. Even one riding his horse under the influence. If you can get a DUI for riding your horse, I can’t imagine being able to ride a motor bike without a license.

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At 13 years old I was driving old military Jeeps towing irrigation pipe trailers on a farm in Oregon. We were allowed to cross public roads to another field but driving down them was a no,no. Did you drink beer while driving the dump truck? LoL. I went to a bar in Missoula when I was 19 (1972). A couple of kids who couldn’t have been over 14 were playing pool and drinking beer. When the regulars started coming in I felt very underdressed lacking a Colt .45 on one hip and large Bowie knife on the other. Those were the days.

There are many drivers on the road without a drivers license, got hit by one, sure people are required to have a drivers license, but only comes into play if they get pulled over or in an accident they do not run from.:fearful::flushed::dizzy_face:

Oh, I thought you were referring to the beer Colt 45? That and Grain Belt is when I quit drinking beer and switched to vodka.

They do; in some states they can get them. Supporters argue we’re safer if they’re licensed, quite possibly true.

You also used not to need a license to practice medicine.

I was making a joke.