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I just heard what I think is a terrible atrocity (granted on the much milder-end of terrible atrocities) that no one seems to know or care about. Apparently Maryland requires that if you have been diagnosed with sleep apnea:
Failure to do this will result in your driver's license being revoked.
This really makes my blood boil. I found out about this because my friend in Maryland is one such person affected by this, with her extremely mild case of sleep apnea (that probably 75% of Americans actually have). She didn't bother with or really need the CPAP, but now, the DMV found out, and is threatening to revoke her license, so she has no choice. Hell, I'm a person who's been diagnosed with very mild sleep apnea, but I chose to not use the CPAP machine, because I couldn't stand having an intrusive device strapped onto my face with tubes running on my bed, pushing air down my throat all night every night. Provided I didn't sleep on my back, I was completely fine, and I didn't need to use the device at all. Since then, I've lost weight, and I don't have sleep apnea anymore, or at least not as much, but I don't even know if they ever declare someone as "no longer having sleep apnea", or if I'd actually pass that threshold, or if the DMV would care. My only saving grace is that I don't live in Maryland, but man, this makes me so scared about what might come next, and how long I'll get to keep my driver's license for before this either comes to my state, or some other health-related driving restrictions start cropping up.
This seems like such rampant safetyism to me that it honestly makes me so angry, probably angrier than I should be. I guess this seems like such government overreach, much in the same way as covid restrictions. Except that these restrictions really could last forever, and expand to other states, and never go away, unlike the covid restrictions. Did Maryland honestly have rampant cases of drivers falling asleep because they were so tired from their sleep apnea that they needed to mandate an intrusive, ongoing, never-ending medical treatment to save people from crashing their cars? Does this help anyone at all, or were they just looking to do some security theater?
I really want to do something to fight this before it expands. Is this the sort of thing the ACLU would take up the fight for? Are there any organizations that would actually fund and spearhead a class action lawsuit for this sort of thing?
Buckle up! It’s about to get so much worse.
Here I’ve highlighted the phrases that should make you piss yourself if you have pro-liberty biases.
Well I suppose that's bad news for people who want to break the law when driving, for the rest of us though it's a good if such drivers are off the roads.
This is simply correct. It doesn't.
The first rule in most "rules of the road" guides is something akin to "break any and all rules if it is necessary to prevent an accident". There are other special cases like "using private vehicle as impromptu ambulance", common in rural areas, which necessitate breaking rules.
In the hands of an experienced and sane driver, the ability to ignore road rules is a benefit to safety. These people do not want to lose that ability.
(Also, it is highly predictable that a system like the "active" systems here would sooner or later be hacked by terrorists or cyberwarriors and used to indiscriminately murder people by forcing thousands of cars to slam the brakes simultaneously. It introduces a single point of failure. I can't drive, but even if I could I would not feel safe driving a car that was this hilariously vulnerable.)
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Many, if not most, traffic laws are bad, so your assertion is wrong. We have a few good laws such as "drive on the right", but they are outnumbered by bad ones. Rolling stops at stop signs are objectively good. So is going through a red light if there is no cross traffic. Most speed limits are 10-45 MPH too low.
I would prefer the remedy to "the laws are bad" to be "change the laws to be good" rather than "don't enforce the laws".
That would be better. But enforcing traffic laws like going 75 on the highway doesn't take bad drivers off the streets.
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True, honest people have nothing to hide from the government, and no reason to object to any coercive measure, as long as it's framed to affect only the lawbreakers. There is no historical example of the government ever abusing such measures or turning them against law-abiding innocent people. In fact, it is clearly impossible, as the person who the government prosecutes is clearly ipso facto not law-abiding.
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My new car will helpfully display what it thinks the current speed limit is.
Sometimes, that means that while I'm driving down the highway with a posted 65mph speed limit, it will start flashing "25 mph" on the dashboard.
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