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For those of you who naively think the nanny state is not in your future....

... you're going to have to breathe on the old biddy just to start your car, apparently.

From Overlawyered:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is anything but an uncontroversial organization, as the Washington Times, Radley Balko, and our own archives make clear. Among the bad, sometimes awful ideas with which it has been identified are a reduction of the blood alcohol limit to .04 (meaning that for some adults a single drink could result in arrest), blanket police roadblocks and pullovers, the 55 mph speed limit, traffic-cams, and the imprisonment of parents who knowingly permit teen party drinking, to name but a few. Of particular interest when it comes to the policies of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), it has backed proposed legislation demanding that costly breathalyzer-ignition interlock systems be foisted on all new cars, whether or not their drivers have ever committed a DUI offense; it’s also lined up with the plaintiff’s bar on various dubious efforts to expand liability.

Now President Obama has named MADD CEO Chuck Hurley to head NHTSA. Drivers, car buyers, and the American public had better brace themselves for a season of neo-Prohibitionist rhetoric, nannyist initiatives, and efforts to criminalize now-lawful conduct. It won’t be pretty.


The silver lining is this story is, of course, that with the automobile manufacturers going even broker with our tax dollars [thank God we gave them those extra tens of billions to tide them over into bankruptcy], nobody will be buying these brave new cars anyway....

Comments

The biker community (disjointed as it is) has been talking Hurley's nomination up. There are all sorts of potential implications for bikers in a number of areas.

The nanny state is coming, and it a slow-creep into our lives. Most people won't even notice until they wake up one day and realize they can't enjoy life.

P.S. At a motorcycle legislative event last weekend, a seminar leader pointed out one state where they wanted to have the BAL set at .02 for bikers only. While I do not condone drinking and driving or drinking and riding (it is just plain stupid), it somehow seems discriminatory to me.
Anonymous said…
I'll assume a tone of sarcasm went with your "silver lining:...

with the nationalization of GM & Chrysler, we have two less industry voices to object to nanny state
Townie 76 said…
You might remember I saw through the facade of MADD when we were at JMU and I dutifully warned the then Governor that raising the drinking age would serve little purpose other than to make college age kids intentional law breakers.

MADD is the type of organization, which Little Jimmy Madison warned us about in Federalist 10.

Tyrants come in all shapes and forms, they are still tyrants even if their hearts are pure.

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