A driver’s license is a privilege — and it’s time we treated it like one

There is a question we have avoided for far too long, and the latest tragedy in Durrës, where two children were struck and killed, makes it impossible to keep avoiding it. As calls grow for harsher penalties in the criminal code and the traffic code, perhaps the more urgent question is simpler: why are some people allowed behind the wheel at all?

To answer that, we first need to let go of a false assumption: that driving is a right. It is not, and it never has been. Driving a vehicle that weighs, on average, about two tons and moves at speed through public spaces is a conditional privilege. It is granted by the state on behalf of society. And like any such privilege, it can and should be taken away in certain cases — perhaps even permanently.

We already accept this in principle. Not everyone should be allowed to hold a driver’s license. Someone with advanced dementia, for example, should not be allowed to drive. The same is true of people with severe vision problems, epilepsy, or other medical conditions that impair judgment or make driving unsafe. The same logic applies when someone is caught driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In all these cases, we have decided that the risk to everyone else is too high, and that these individuals should not be allowed on the road.

If we accept that someone with epilepsy should not drive because they cannot reliably control what happens behind the wheel, then we should also accept that someone who has repeatedly shown contempt for traffic rules should not keep that privilege either. Repeated public behavior is evidence. It tells us what a person is likely to do again. The surprise would not be another violation; the surprise would be compliance.

The Durrës case, if the reports are accurate, suggests that the driver was already a known danger. Allowing him, and many others like him, to remain on the road shows that our system still does not treat a driver’s license as the privilege it is.

So what would it mean to take that idea seriously?

First, it would mean permanently revoking licenses in cases of repeated serious violations. If your conduct has shown that you cannot be trusted behind the wheel, why should you be entitled to return to it after a few months, or even after a year?

Second, it would mean creating an integrated central registry of all drivers who are no longer allowed to hold a license. Such a registry would prevent them from buying a car through official channels. Even if they managed to buy one outside those channels, they would not be able to register it or insure it. A person whose license has been permanently revoked, and who is legally barred from buying or registering a vehicle in their own name, is far less dangerous than someone who is merely told they are not allowed to drive.

Many will, of course, argue that such measures are excessive and violate individual freedom. But Albania’s roads belong to all of us. The convenience of reckless drivers is not a freedom worth protecting when the price is the safety of everyone else on the road. And extreme situations often require firm measures. Official data show that 85 percent of accidents in Albania are caused by driver behavior.

The shock caused by this latest case is enormous. But shock, by itself, changes nothing. What may change something is accepting that the man who killed those children was not an exception to the rule. He was the logical product of an overly tolerant system: a system that suspended his license at least twice, yet still allowed him back behind the wheel after only a few months.

That revolving door has to close. Losing a driver’s license should carry real consequences in a person’s life. The countless victims of accidents caused by repeat offenders deserve at least that much seriousness from society.