After doing a little research, I have to disagree with you. Stephenson vs Binford doesn’t address drivers licenses for private citizens. At the time of the ruling less than half the states had any type of driver’s licenses and not all of those required private citizens to have them. AAMOF, it is illegal to drive without a license in all 50 states. Same goes for an unregistered vehicles.
The fact is SCOTUS has never ruled on the constitutionality of a driver’s license for private citizens and I doubt you’ll ever see them even take on such a case. However, a few state supreme courts have made such rulings and they have been upheld every time. One such case in VA (Thompson v. Smith, 155 VA Supreme Court 1930):
The right of a citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon in the ordinary course of life and business is a common right which he has under his right to enjoy life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, and to pursue happiness and safety. It includes the right in so doing to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day; and under the existing modes of travel includes the right to drive a horse-drawn carriage or wagon thereon, or to operate an automobile thereon, for the usual and ordinary purposes of life and business. It is not a mere privilege, like the privilege of moving a house in the street, operating a business stand in the street, or transporting persons or property for hire along the street, which a city may permit or prohibit at will.
The exercise of such a common right the city may, under its police power, regulate in the interest of the public safety and welfare; but it may not arbitrarily or unreasonably prohibit or restrict it, nor may it permit one to exercise it and refuse to permit another of like qualifications, under like conditions and circumstances, to exercise it.
The regulation of the exercise of the right to drive a private automobile on the streets of the city may be accomplished in part by the city by granting, refusing, and revoking, under rules of general application, permits to drive an automobile on its streets; but such permits may not be arbitrarily refused or revoked, or permitted to be held by some and refused to other of like qualifications, under like circumstances and conditions.
While VA ruled it was a in fact a right of the citizen to travel on public roads it also upheld the ability to regulate how that was done “by granting, refusing, and revoking, under rules of general application”. IOW, a private citizen can be required to have a driver’s license. It is a stone cold fact that every time driver’s licenses for private citizens have come before a state Supreme Court the authority of that state to require licenses has never been challenged. It has been upheld time after time.
You might also be interested to hear that such case law exists in California. In 1987 the California Supreme Court upheld the states mandatory auto insurance law. Case law in California specifically requires you to have insurance on your car and upholds state laws concerning licenses and car registrations. By California case law if you have a car that is being driven on the open road it must registered and have insurance.
It seems your case law argument doesn’t hold water.
Mike