Travel Freedom
Two variables—the use and retention of automated license plate reader data and the availability of driver’s licenses to those without Social Security numbers (such as undocumented workers)—together make up about half of the travel freedom category’s total weight in the index.
About 11.1 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, and we assume that 60 percent of them would be willing to get driver’s licenses, slightly lower than the rate of licensed drivers in the general population. We then assume the mean value of a license per driver per year is $750. For automated license plate readers, we assume that the average driver—of whom there are 210 million in the United States—would be willing to pay $15 a year to avoid being subject to their unlimited use.
Seat belt laws are weighted based on estimated costs of tickets. A fingerprint or thumbprint requirement for a driver’s license is worth slightly less.
Suspicionless sobriety checkpoints invade privacy and create anxiety among those stopped and searched. Extrapolating from two different sources from states with sobriety checkpoints, we estimate about nine million drivers a year would be searched at sobriety checkpoints if they were legal nationwide. We assume a cost of $20 per driver searched in lost time, privacy, and anxiety. We multiply the variable by five because some state constitutions prohibit these checkpoints.
After that come uninsured and underinsured motorist insurance coverage requirements, motorcycle helmet laws, open-container laws, and bans on driving while using a cellphone, in that order.
These variables were included in previous editions of Freedom in the 50 States, and some of them generated a fair number of comments by readers and audience members at public presentations. In particular, it was argued that some of these variables seem to be justified on the grounds of enhancing public safety. But not every measure that enhances public safety is morally justifiable—consider random searches of pedestrians. A preferable approach would use penalties for “distracted driving” of whatever cause, rather than a blanket ban on using a handheld phone while driving, which does not always pose a risk to others. Likewise, it would be better to focus on penalties for drunk driving rather than punishing people for having open beverage containers in their vehicles, another behavior that does not necessarily pose a direct risk to others. In states with a federally conforming open-container law, having an unsealed but closed wine bottle on the floor of the passenger side of a car is sufficient to trigger a misdemeanor violation and possible jail time.
No state does extremely well on travel freedom. Utah scores at the top despite having sobriety checkpoints, an open-container law, and a primary-enforcement seat belt law, because it is one of the few states allowing someone to obtain a driver’s license without a Social Security number and places some limits on automated license plate reader data retention and, unlike number two Vermont, does not mandate underinsured motorist coverage.