Lawmaker who think it's OK to pass on AIDS wants to crack down on speeding TOM KNIGHTON JAN 26

When I was in the Navy, I was stationed for a time at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. I don’t remember most of my patients because, well, there were a lot of them, but one stood out. She changed my views on HIV and AIDS. See, before then, I always figured if you got it, you probably did something to get it. Sure, I knew about Ryan White getting it from a blood transfusion, but that had been addressed. Those cases weren’t happening anymore. Upgrade to paid Then I met a patient whose “sin” was to have sex with her husband. He’d screwed around on her while deployed on a Med cruise, then brought HIV home and passed it on to his wife. This young woman was dying, suffering in ways that were absolutely heartbreaking. Treating her was the toughest thing I did, and not because she was a bad patient. She wasn’t. Which is why a bill introduced by California state Sen. Scott Wiener bothered me so much. It removed a law making it a felony to knowingly pass HIV on to someone else. It became law, so people infected with the disease don’t have to tell potential partners, making it basically legal to infect someone with such a horrible ailment. Yes, that was back in 2017, but it pissed me off then and it still pisses me off. While people can live a long time with HIV today, it’s expensive and difficult. It negatively impacts your entire life, sidetracking many goals one might have including starting a family. But Wiener figures screw all that. Yet while he pushed through that, he’s now thinking that cars shouldn’t be allowed to speed. California Senator Scott Wiener is introducing a new set of bills to make streets safer across the state, including one that would change how you drive. It would require any new car or truck made or sold in the state in 2027 or later to have special technology installed in the car called "speed governors." The device would make it physically impossible for vehicles to go 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limits. "I don't think it's at all an overreach, and I don't think most people would view it as an overreach, we have speed limits, I think most people support speed limits because people know that speed kills," Wiener said. So does AIDS, you vacuous little toad, but you had no problem with a law enabling people to destroy others’ lives. But Wiener isn’t done there. Another part of the measure would require large trucks to install side guards to prevent pedestrians, cyclists, or other vehicles from getting sucked underneath the truck during a crash. Sen. Wiener says the bills are "commonsense actions" to protect public safety. "I think if you ask anyone, do people need to be driving more than 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, assuming you're not an emergency vehicle which are exempt from the bill, I think most people would say no, I don't want people driving more than 10 miles an hour in my neighborhood," he said. Actually, yeah, there are times people need to drive more than 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. That’s sort of beside the point, though, because all this will really do is drive up the costs of cars in California, push more people to buy used cars which are also likely to be less fuel efficient, or have people disable those governors as soon as they drive off the lot. I assure you, they can do it. Now, understand that speeding isn’t exactly a good practice, though I do plenty of it myself. But there are laws against such things. If they’re insufficient to prevent it, well, that’s the nature of laws. You punish people for violating the law, but since speeding comes with fines and higher insurance premiums, what you’re saying is that it’s legal for a price. And this bill won’t change that. It won’t make it so you have to decide if speeding is worth it. It simply puts a governor on your car that won’t let you speed. But which actual speed limit are we talking about? The interstate speed limit, for example, is completed different than the speed limit in a residential school zone. Or are the governors going to be dictated by some remote system, which is what it sounds like since it limits over the posted speed limit. I’m sorry, but that’s where any possibility of me not getting worked up about this ends. See, if they can control your maximum speed, then they can decide no one can drive anywhere for any reason. They can essentially post the speed limit at whatever they want and shut down your cars remotely. (And I’m wondering what happens when you’re on private land that has no posted speed limit.) That might not be what’s in the bill, but if the capability exists, someone will want to use it, and I find it unlikely the capability wouldn’t exist if the governors can detect posted speed limits somehow. And let’s remember how stupid California got during the pandemic. You know they’d shut down cars if they thought it was a way to make people stay home. Meanwhile, this is someone who seems to think that this is important legislation, that your need should be determined by the state but is totally OK with someone infecting another with a disease that is, at best, life altering without having to disclose that disease. The only thing consistent in the politics of someone like Wiener is their inconsistency. Tilting at Windmills is 100% reader-supported. If you enjoyed this article, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription for 15% off the first year or making a one-time donation here. Your support is greatly appreciated. Tilting At Windmills. © 2024 Tom Knighton 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104