Did LHO know how to drive? Does it matter?

[Jon Banks]

Based on the testimonies of Marina and Ruth Paine, it's assumed that LHO didn't have a Drivers License but Mrs. Paine was teaching him how to Drive. So it's probable that he knew how to drive by the Fall of 1963.

Several people claimed to have witnessed Oswald driving, including Albert Bogard who told investigators he inquired about buying a car 2 weeks before Kennedy's assassination.

Mr. BOGARD. A gentleman walked in the door and walked up and introduced himself to me, and tells me he wants to look at a car. I show him a car on the showroom floor, and take him for a ride out Stemmons Expressway and back, and he was driving at 60 to 70 miles an hour and came back to the showroom. And I made some figures, and he told me that he wasn't ready to buy, that he would be in a couple or 3 weeks, that he had some money coming in. And when he finally started to leave I got his name and wrote it on the back of one of my business cards, and never heard from the man any more. And the day that the President was shot, when I heard that--they had the radio on in the showroom, and when I heard the name, that he had shot a policeman over in Oak Cliff, I pulled out some business cards that I had wrote his name on the back on, and said, "He won't be a prospect any more because he is going to jail," and ripped the card up...

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Mr. BALL. Did he appear to know how to drive the car?
Mr. BOGARD. Well, he had drove before, I'm sure, because he took off.
Mr. BALL. Did he----
Mr. BOGARD. He might have drove a little reckless, but other than that, he knew how to drive.
Mr. BALL. What do you mean, "He might have drove it a little reckless"?
Mr. BOGARD. Well, going 60 and 70 miles an hour right up a Freeway and took curves kind of fast.
Mr. BALL Did it appear to you that he knew how to handle the car?
Mr. BOGARD. Yes.

I'm inclined to believe the Bogard story is true.

Does it matter that Oswald claimed to have "some money" coming in a few weeks? If Oswald was part of some sort of conspiracy and expected to be paid a large sum of money, he might've considered buying a car shortly after. On the otherhand, maybe he was simply saving up to make a down payment on a car.

[Doug Easterly]

I was always amazed that the Dallas Police official who led the charge up to the rooftop (initially) and was with the business owner and inquired who Oswald was when he saw him getting a Coke out of a vending machine (or pretending to do so, maybe to turn his face), never instructed one of his patrolmen to detain Oswald. I know I would be thinking WTF there is great pandemonium on the street outside and this guy is acting like it is a normal lunch hour? I want to talk to him later!

[Doug Easterly]

And further, yes I know the owner ID him as an employee but as the officer I still would be questioning his laissez faire attitude at that point in time!

[John Iacoletti]

And further, yes I know the owner ID him as an employee but as the officer I still would be questioning his laissez faire attitude at that point in time!

I guess they would have needed to detain Dougherty, West, and Piper as well then.

[Richard Smith]

I was always amazed that the Dallas Police official who led the charge up to the rooftop (initially) and was with the business owner and inquired who Oswald was when he saw him getting a Coke out of a vending machine (or pretending to do so, maybe to turn his face), never instructed one of his patrolmen to detain Oswald. I know I would be thinking WTF there is great pandemonium on the street outside and this guy is acting like it is a normal lunch hour? I want to talk to him later!

You have had 50+ plus years to have made that decision with the benefit of hindsight.  Baker was making decisions on the fly.  He ran into a building, encountered a guy in the lunch room who was vouched for as an employee, and made the understandable decision in that moment to move on to the upper floors where the shots came from.  There was no other patrolman to instruct to detain Oswald even if he had any cause to do so.

[Jerry Freeman]

You don't have to have a license to know how to drive.
Neither applied to the guy police arrested...However---

Marina and the Paines clearly testified that Oswald did not drive and did
not have a driver's license.  It is remarkable, then, that more than thirty
people told the Warren Commission, the FBI, and/or Garrison investigators
that Oswald did drive, some saying they had seen his Texas driver's license.
Here is the complete list of names assembled as of 1997 by John Armstrong:

Cliff Shasteen                                Joyce Bostic
Leonard Hutchinson                        Inez Laake
Fred Moore                                Gayle Scott
Malcolm Price                                Peggy Smith
Floyd Guy Davis                                Mrs. Ernie Isaacs
Gertrude Hunter                                Margaret Budreau
Edith Whitworth                                Clifford Wormser
Red Pope                                FBI Agent Bob Barrett
Leo Sepulveda                                Captain Westbrook
Sonny Stewart                                Edward Brand
Robert Janca                                Garland Slack
Robert Roy                                William J. Chesher
Al Bogard                                Howard Price
W.M. Hannie                                Sterling Wood
Mrs. Lee Bozarth                        Dr. Homer Wood
Aletha Frair                                Randy Sundy

Ignore the imposter..ignore the truth.

[John Iacoletti]

I can tell you that even now in Texas you don't make an appointment.  You just show up and take a number.

[Richard Rubio]

Drove but no driver's license.