Road Rules: Being ticketed for a suspended license on private property

Question: Can a police officer give a ticket for driving with a suspended license on private property?

Answer: There are a lot of things you can legally do in a vehicle on private property that would be clear violations of the law on public roads. Driving suspended is not one of them.

If you were to crack open the chapter on driver licenses in the Revised Code of Washington, the first section you’d find would start with, “No person may drive a motor vehicle upon a highway in this state without first obtaining a valid driver’s license ...” If you read that closely, you’ll notice it says, “upon a highway.” Based on that, you might conclude that driver license laws only apply while you’re on public roads, and you’d almost be right. But not quite.

Read on, and when you get to the part about driving while suspended or revoked, the law states, “It is unlawful for any person to drive a motor vehicle in this state while that person is in a suspended or revoked status … ” Unlike the section about having a license, this part expands the area where it applies to “this state” instead of “upon a highway in this state.” 

You can find a parallel concept in the “Rules of the Road” chapter of the law. It also begins by saying that the law applies “exclusively to the operation of vehicles upon highways ...” and then makes some exceptions for the most serious traffic violations, which “shall apply on highways and elsewhere throughout the state.” 

Those violations include vehicular homicide, vehicular assault, impaired driving, reckless driving and negligent driving. I suspect most of us agree that some behaviors are so dangerous that the laws should apply no matter where they’re happening. In addition, the duty to report a collision applies statewide, whether on a public road or private property. 

Getting back to the suspended license, you might have noticed that the law makes possible a scenario where if you’ve never had a driver’s license you could practice learning to drive a stick shift in an empty parking lot (like what some kids do with their parents when learning to drive) but if your license is suspended the same driving practice would be a violation of the law. Maybe that doesn’t seem fair, but if you consider that of the many ways to end up with a suspended license, nearly all of them involve a serious disregard for traffic laws, it makes more sense. To put it in perspective, only 3 percent of Washington drivers have a suspended license, but suspended drivers are involved in nine percent of fatal crashes. 

The law doesn’t specify whose private property either, so presumably it would be illegal for someone with a suspended license to ride their motorcycle on trails they made on the 40 acres behind their house. Realistically though, unless that rider somehow caused harm to someone and the police were called to investigate, I can’t see much enforcement happening there. Plus, I don’t think that’s what the law was intended for.

In contrast, plenty of private property is open to the community. In this context private just means it’s a location that’s not owned or built by the government. In addition to the parking lot I mentioned earlier, you’ll find people driving on private property in gated communities, small neighborhoods that share a private road, and commercial developments. Public or private, when it’s shared by all kinds of road users we all have a responsibility to use the space safely.

Doug Dahl is a manager with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, Region 11 and publishes TheWiseDrive.com.