We don't really believe in the notion that driving is a privilege. It's apparent that we view driving as a God-given right as judged by our reaction to safety tools like red-light cameras or driver's license checkpoints.

In the past week, the Times has run articles about an Escondido resident who believes he's found a loophole in the law that will allow a sharp lawyer to overturn every ticket the city's ever issued from its automated red light cameras, and about folks still upset with the city's ongoing driver's license checkpoints.

With both the red light cameras and the checkpoints, we have the aggrieved parties talking about rights being violated.

But when the automobile was coming into a vogue just over a century ago, it was decided that driving was not a right -- that because of the public safety issues involved and skill needed to safely operate a vehcle, driving would be a privilege.

Every citizen had to be allowed the same opportunity to qualify for that privilege. And once granted, the privilege to drive couldn't be taken away without just cause and an opportunity for citizens to argue their case before a judge.

But, as the courts have upheld through the years, in the eyes of the law (and thus society), driving is and remains a privilege.

Maybe that's something we should have kept in mind after World War II, when we began building our infrastructure around the automobile, with suburban housing tracts built miles from where jobs were located and no way to get there but by car. Perhaps we should have kept other transportation options open. The destruction of local light rail lines, bought up and then shut down by Detroit automakers, has been well-documented, and it was a shameful practice that the Big Three still haven't fully owned up to, even as they ask those of us they've basically enslaved to the car to bail them out of their own poor business decisions to the tune of billions of dollars.

Still, while modern life is far more dependent upon the car than a century ago, were driving a right instead of a privilege, it would be nearly impossible to remove dangerous drivers from the roadways. Repeat drunk drivers and folks with serious medical conditions causing them to periodically black out would retain their licenses in such a scenario -- who wants that?

Rather than railing against red light cameras or driver's license checkpoints (and does anyone seriously dispute that there are Escondido residents who wouldn't be alive today without them?), it seems to me that our anti-authoritarian energies might be better used in demanding alternatives to the car.

The recent downturn in oil and gas prices has us already forgetting how popular bus and train service were when gas was more than $4 a gallon. And we rediscovered that we could walk or bike to local errands -- that we didn't have to get in the car to drive four blocks to get a gallon of milk.

Given our dependency on the car, it's tempting to view driving as a right. But until that time comes, maybe the rights we should be defending a little more vociferously are the right to affordable public transportation, the right of children to walk to school safely -- in other words, the right not to have to choose between modern life and the automobile.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at jtrageser@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5408.