When Big Things are going on, little things often slip by
unnoticed. Such is the case with regard to the recent nomination
of Charles Hurley to head the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA), which is the federal government’s chief
regulatory apparat governing both automobiles and what
may be done with them on public roads.
NHTSA is actually a pretty big deal, given the power it wields
over one of the country’s last remaining major industries, as
well as anyone who drives a motor vehicle. And the nomination of
Hurley is an ominous development for both. If his prior record is
any indication, we can expect more in the way of arbitrary
interference with the way the car companies do business at a
moment when they can least afford the burden of bureaucratic
meddling. And drivers can expect a ratcheting up of the low-grade
harassment they already endure — in the form of more obnoxious
laws, especially “safety” checks and very possibly lowered speed
limits — all of it imposed on the states in the time-honored
way: Uncle Sam will withhold federal highway funds for any
refusal to toe the line.
Why be worried? For openers, Hurley is a former leader of Mothers
Against Drunk Driving — arguably the most unreasonable and
totalitarian-minded “special interest” in all of D.C. Its
original mission — a public campaign to make driving drunk
unacceptable — has metastasized into a crusade against any
consumption of alcohol whatsoever. The legal standard for “drunk”
driving has already been lowered to .08 BAC — a level well below
the .10 and up at which people have actual accidents as opposed
to running afoul of “sobriety checkpoints.”
But even that isn’t enough. MADD wants the legal threshold
reduced to .04 BAC, which would turn anyone who had a glass of
wine over dinner into a “drunk driver” as far as the law was
concerned — and subject them to penalties more severe than those
applied to many violent felons.
Hurley was the chief cheerleader for this grossly
disproportionate, factually unsupportable crusade. As NHTSA head,
expect him to push the MADD agenda as far as he can — including
mandatory in-car alcohol detectors for everyone, not just those
already convicted of DWI. “Sobriety checkpoints” — where random
people are randomly subjected to Gestapo-like stop and frisks,
for absolutely no reason other than they happened to be driving
on a particular road at a given time — will be stepped up.
Prior to becoming MADD’s
Obergruppenführer, Hurley was head of
the National Safety Council — essentially, the agit-prop organ
of the insurance cartel — where he helped force-feed airbags and
“primary enforcement” seat belt laws on the public.
Mandatory airbags — which add thousands of dollars to the
price/lifetime ownership costs of every new car — have arguably
helped undermine the car industry by making new cars much more
expensive and thus less affordable to consumers as well as less
profitable to sell. Airbags are also the only “safety” device
known to maim and even kill. It’s true “only” a relative handful
of people have been sent to a slab or permanently disfigured
(eyes popped out of their sockets, etc.) by the force of a
deploying airbag. But one imagines that matters a great deal to
those involved, if not to Hurley.
Some might argue they’d prefer to make the choice to have or not
have airbags — for safety or cost reasons — on their own.
Hurley sneers at such a concept. If “most” people benefit from
airbags (according to him), then what of the few who might get
hurt? To make an omelet, one must break eggs, after all. And the
cost? Improved “safety” — as defined by Hurley — is
well worth the expense. The Little People must have guidance
since they are too dumb to know what’s best for them.
The same goes for laws that make wearing a seatbelt mandatory —
and which give the cops authority to pull drivers over for
failing to do so. Hurley, like the rest of Washington’s ruling
caste, knows what’s best for us — and intends to enforce it at
gunpoint.
As head of NHTSA, he will wield immense power to do precisely
that — and more besides. Expect photo radar and red light
cameras to proliferate; have no doubt there will be a major push
for a “pay as you go” driving tax — with mandatory GPS
transponders for every vehicle, so that Uncle can keep track of
where, when, and how much you drive — and send you a bill
accordingly.
The good times are only just starting to roll.
