You’re against the privatization of roads?  You must love Justin Bieber!

Yes, that is a false dichotomy, but it is nice to turn that fallacy around on the road socialists to poke a little fun at their many appeals to it.

But seriously, if roads were private, there’s a good chance that Justin Bieber would not be allowed to drive on them.  I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but Justin Bieber was arrested early this morning for DUI after being pulled over for drag racing in Miami.  My “I don’t care about pop culture” tendencies have been assaulted by this story all day, and while I would usually never be caught dead bringing up the Bieber on this site, the opportunity was just too good to pass up.

Like many young celebrities, Bieber is in that period of his life where he’s beginning to slip into irrelevance and exhibits behavior that screams of “the crazies.”  There hasn’t been much good news about Justin Bieber and he’s clearly making destructive decisions.  And it’s fine if his destructive decisions are limited to the world of Instagram (a place I never visit), but it is not quite as fine when he takes his act to the streets (literally).

Since driving under the influence is very dangerous, road managers will take steps to punish people who engage in it.  Currently under the government-controlled road system, a DUI conviction will carry with it jail time (maybe) and a suspension of your license.  In Florida (Bieberworld), the first DUI offense will mean that your license will be suspended for 180 days to a year.  In the private road case, road owners would undoubtedly ban DUI offenders from their roads for a period of time—if they ever let them drive on their roads again.

Of course other offenses, such as drag racing, would carry some sort of bans whether the owner is the government or a private company.  So why would it be better if private businesses owned and controlled the roads?  Take this segment from the CNN article:

Deputies have also investigated reports by Bieber’s neighbors that he raced his expensive sports car down the streets of the exclusive Oaks community of Calabasas, California, but no charges ever resulted.

With no conviction, there’s no ban within the realm of the government.  Judging by Bieber’s behavior as a whole, it should not have surprised anyone that he would wind up getting pulled over for drag racing and arrested for DUI.  With a private business, the owner has the right to deny service to anyone they want.  To give another example, imagine Bieber and his posse approaching a nice, fancy restaurant.  Upon seeing them, the owner may think to himself, “You know what, no matter how many fuzzy navels he orders, it’s just not worth the aggravation my normal clientele will have to deal with.  It’s not worth losing multiple customers over new one.  And on top of that, if word gets out, it hurts my business even more.”

It’s no different with roads.  People want to feel and be safe as they drive, so it in the best interest of the road owners to deliver on that.  It matters a lot of if they can advertise that they have safe roads.  Just imagine the power of seeing billboards like this:

As long as the government controls the roads, people like Justin Bieber will continue to be allowed to drive on them.  There’s no incentive for them to do otherwise.  Private roads offer a better alternative: safer options and the chance of less Bieber.