In the end, unless a person is incarcerated, compliance with the law is entirely voluntary. A 57-year-old man had his driver’s license revoked for an undisclosed medical condition, but got behind the wheel anyway, and now he’s dead, after having left a trail of debris behind. From WPVI-TV:

Deadly Haverford Township crash raises questions about revoked driving privileges

By Cheyenne Corin | Tuesday, October 6, 2026 | 12:33 AM EDT

HAVERFORD TWP., Pa. (WPVI) — A deadly multi-vehicle crash in Haverford Township is raising questions about how a driver whose license had been revoked for medical reasons ended up behind the wheel.

The crash, which stretched more than a mile through Haverford Township on Saturday, left 57-year-old John Ryan dead, eight others injured and 16 vehicles damaged.

Surveillance video captured the violent end of the crash, showing Ryan’s pickup truck slamming into stopped vehicles, flipping onto its side and crashing into a U-Haul.

Police said Ryan suffered a medical emergency before the crash and that his license had been revoked for an unknown medical condition.

Attorney Ramsey Chew, who handles automotive accident cases, said a medical recall of driving privileges means a driver is no longer legally permitted to be on the road.

There’s more at the original, concerned primarily about the procedures and restrictions for someone who has had his license to drive revoked.

The late Mr Ryan had previously lost his license, though for a medical condition which made it unsafe for him to drive, not any noted crime. We know nothing about his decision to drive someplace anyway. But it led me to think about drunk drivers.

People who drive while intoxicated absolutely don’t have accidents every time they drive. ‘Oh, I made it home just fine! Everything was OK,’ is their experience, right up until it isn’t. They start out slowly, paying close attention to everything, and make it home safely, and their confidence grows, until it’s just no longer a real concern to them; they’re good drivers even after a few beers.

Then there are the gang-bangers and wannabes in our big cities. Carrying a Glock makes them feel tough and prepared for anything, and the odds are that they’ve shot at no one most of the times they were armed. Reading a story “83-year-old woman wounded by stray gunfire in North Philly“, the result of a gun battle which left more than 40 spent shell casings, yet apparently no dead or wounded gang-bangers, speaks to me of a total lack of discipline and thugs who are out on the street, voluntarily choosing to break the laws. The probabilities are high that none of them were licensed to carry firearms, and just as high that they were young enough to not have even be eligible to obtain a license if they had sought one.

With Let ’em Loose Larry Krasner as District Attorney, it’s almost as probable that some of them had been previously arrested but let go with barely a slap on the wrist.

This is what people, all people, not just idiots like Mr Krasner, have to realize: people’s compliance with the law is entirely voluntarily. Was this the late Mr Ryan’s first time out in the vehicle available to him? We don’t know, but probably not. He might have driven very sparingly, or he might have treated his loss of his license and simply an annoyance, and driven all the time. He might have made long trips without incident, or simply wanted a Wawa coffee on occasion and decided to drive to get one. Nothing ever went wrong, until it did.

I can think of no way we could have prevented Mr Ryan from driving. Previously convicted drunk drivers? Yeah, there are devices which can be installed which have breathalyzer safety features, but those only apply to those previously convicted of drunk driving, so they can’t be mandated for those who were never caught, and they only rarely are even for those previously convicted. The gang-bangers who shot up North Gratz Street? If they’d been previously caught, perhaps they could have been behind bars, but who knows if they had been caught before, or if Mr Krasner had anything done to them if they had been?

Crime is a matter of culture.