Go-karts are a fun little diversion that’s perfect for teaching kids their first loophole: you can drive without a driver’s license. That devil-may-care attitude toward road safety has carried over to theMario Kartseries as well, allowing many clearly unqualified individuals the right to go vroom.
But here’s the thing. The time when you could reasonably suggest that Mario Kart racers don’t need licenses is long gone. Several courses, notably in theMario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course tracks, now blast through actual real world locations like Singapore, New York, Paris, etc. So which of these characters are absolutely skirting ID laws to participate in what technically amounts to illegal street racing?
8Petey Piranha
You don’t really need this explained, do you? Petey Piranha is a plant. There’s no way he could have a driver’s license because who would give it to him? The question of whether sapient flora should be allowed the privilege of vehicle operation is another discussion entirely, but the concept of civil rights in the Mushroom Kingdom is a whole can of worms on its own.
Aside from that, Petey has attacked Mario so many times that he’s got to be on a blacklist in the local DMV by now. Unlike Bowser, he’s not royalty, so he can’t use political and monetary privilege to bypass the rules and get a license anyway. There might also be some insider shenanigans in play regarding the Piranha Plant item.
7The Babies
There is no universe in which it’s cool to give babies driver’s licenses. Hilarious, maybe, but never cool. While it’s reasonable to assumeany vaguely humanoid charactercan get one in the Mushroom Kingdom, age has to be a factor, and it very much factors into the baby versions of Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Peach, and Rosalina.
Granted, it can be kind of hard to gauge anyone’s age in these games. Mario himself could be anywhere from his early 20s to late 40s, even by conservative estimates. But if you’re driving around with a diaper and pacifier, you’re either in the low single digits or you’re a really passionate Like a Dragon fan.
6Metal Mario And Pink Gold Peach
These are two characters, but the same rules apply to both. Here’s where things might get a little muddled. Metal Mario and Pink Gold Peach are humanoid and capable of speech, and if you’ve ever experienced driving through regular traffic, sometimes it seems like that’s all it takes to get a license. But there’s more to this. These two are essentially doppelgangers of very real characters Mario and Peach.
Mario and Peach definitely have their own licenses, and their metal/pink/gold variants are just that, variants. That’s not to mention how they even came to be. Mario becomes Metal Mario when putting on the Metal Cap. Does that mean the character is the cap itself, or does Metal Mario’s existence hinge entirely on its proximity to Mario? Does the license go to the cap? Frankly, the License Bureau would probably just refuse to bother figuring it out.
5Donkey Kong
To get the obvious thing out of the way, Donkey Kong would not have a license, but not because he’s an ape. The sentient beings of the Mushroom Kingdom include bugs, Toads, and whatever Lakitu is among other creatures, so giving a state-issued ID to someone like DK would just be another day at the office.
But Donkey Kong would just simply not get one. He only participates in society on his own terms. Most of his time is spent chilling in his treehouse, only to emerge when somebody messes with his bananas. He takes part in the Mario Kart outings, but would rather not put himself on some government registry to do so. This applies doubly tohis new design on the Switch 2. Look at those eyes. There’s chaos within.
4Dry Bowser
Much like the case with Metal Mario and Pink Gold Peach, an argument can be made that Dry Bowser is simply another form of Bowser. This is how he looks after being plunged into lava, and you’d be hard-pressed to convince an arresting officer that this guy matches the picture on the license Bowser himself definitely has.
It also brings into question just how he became that way. Isn’t Dry Bowser technically no longer alive? Spending a year dead may be a popular tax dodge in some regions, but there’s no way it would be as simple as showing up all corpse-like and trying to claim your identity back. The same discussion also applies to Dry Bones, but it’s more nuanced since that’s just that character’s default look.
3Diddy Kong
Just like Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong’s species has nothing to do with his eligibility. The real reason he wouldn’t have a license is because he’s a kid. Maybe older than the babies, but you can’t reasonably argue that he’s even in the monkey equivalent of his teens.
Diddy also just wouldn’t get one if he could. Look atDiddy Kong Racing. He’s already an old pro at driving and hasn’t needed one yet. He’s too savvy and cool to worry about that. But among the various simian characters in Mario Kart,only Funky Kong would have a license. He’s got to pick you up from the airport, after all.
2Inklings
The Inklings are unambiguously children, and they lost all hope of trying to pass off as anything else right from the start. It’s right there in the song from those firstSplatooncommercials. They declared for the world that, while they are squids now, they are also most certainly kids now.
It’s ok, though. Inklings are crafty and quite adept at escaping hairy situations after growing up on the streets of Inkopolis. So if they get pulled over, it would be a simple task to shoot some ink and go squid mode to dash off. You know full well that these kids are seasoned veterans at shaking the cops.
1Koopalings
No matter which of Bowser’s kids you’re playing as, you’re able to’t escape the fact that they’re just that: kids. No license allowed. But it’s not like they’re not used to skirting the law. Bowser regularly sends them off on their own to fight his arch nemesis for him. If they’ve evaded Child Protective Services for that long, they can do the same for traffic cops.
Notably, thisdoes not apply to Bowser Jr.He’s a nepotism baby. He can’t legally have a license, but everyone who tries to enforce that is too scared of Bowser to enforce it. So he effectively has one. But Bowser’s favoritism for him doesn’t extend to the rest of the Koopalings, so they’ve got to fend for themselves.
