The chief executive of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has just been named by President Obama to be the head of the National Highway Transportation Administration (NHTSA). NHTSA is the agency that oversees highway safety and came up with such DUI enforcement “tools” as field sobriety testing. The man’s name is Chuck Hurley and he is, by all acounts, an anti-alcohol zealot and proponent of heavy regulation by the government. Under his watch, MADD attempted to make it a law the every car sold in America had an ignition interlock device installed when it came off of the sales lot.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before NHTSA and MADD merged into one entity, since they have been playing out of the same book for so many years. Even so, it ought to seem a little odd that the head of one of the major special interest groups attempting to influence agency policy is then made the head of the agency. Only in America would this not be considered totally corrupt.
You can read rants about this nomination at the Agitator Blog. Suffice it to say, under MADD’s watch, you can expect our country’s highway safety agency to be very busy crafting regulations to impose on all of the states for more stringent enforcement for seatbelt, DUI, ignition interlock, teenage driving and other issues concerning th motoring public. He would also like to lower the legal limit to .04 for DUI.