Because your life during the CoronaCrisis just isn’t hard enough…
“Massachusetts drivers caught using their cellphones behind the wheel will begin receiving fines instead of warnings” today, the Boston Herald reports, so if you’re spotted touching a tech device — even if you’re stopped at a light — you could be touched yourself: by the long arm of the law.
So your barber can’t cut your hair and your neighbor can’t shake your hand — but a cop can pull you over and shove a $100 ticket into your mitts.
“Have a nice day!”
For people who understand the science, the ban on hand-held devices while driving inspires eye-rolling. The danger isn’t from the drivers’ hands. It’s their eyes, their minds — where is their attention? If you’re reading, texting or watching “Tiger King” while driving, you’re an idiot and a distracted danger to others. It doesn’t matter if the phone’s in your hands or on the dash.
But even if hand-held cellphones (unlike hand-held coffee, doughnuts and cigarettes, apparently) were a significant health issue, my reaction to this news would still be, “Really — right now? You’re doing this now?”
What, we don’t have enough to worry about as we trek out into the potentially infectious world to the few places Gov. Baker hasn’t shut down? And that’s me, Mr. Media Guy. The biggest danger in my life is getting coughed on at a press conference. What about the exhausted doctors and stressed-out nurses getting pulled over after a long shift because they forgot to switch to hands-free mode?
And what happened to social distancing? Is the cop going to “Inspector Gadget” the license and registration from the perps? Thousands of businesses are going broke because they can’t be trusted to safely serve their customers, but the “Protect and Serve” squad will be out collecting revenue for Beacon Hill and the government gang.
Terrific.
Look, I get it: You break the law, you pay the fine. That’s business as usual. But I thought the entire message of the moment is that life right now isn’t “usual.” That’s why our kids coming home from college out-of-state are being told to self-quarantine, with or without symptoms. Why we are putting private-sector people out of work — on purpose. The same government that made it illegal for you to do your job is still sending out their revenue reapers to do theirs.
Namely, take your money.
They call it “enforcing driving regulations.” But once again — isn’t “enforcing regulations” one reason we’re in this mess?
As Alex Stapp reports in an outstanding (and rage-inducing) report at The Dispatch, when HHS Secretary Alex Azar declared a public health emergency on Jan. 31, the Food and Drug Administration kicked in regulations that actually made it harder for coronavirus test kits to come on the market. Private and academic labs that had already been making progress on testing were forced to stop by FDA red tape.
The regulators at the FDA didn’t rescind their idiotic requirements until Feb. 29. An entire month spent dotting i’s and crossing t’s, while virtually no effective test kits came on the market. This “rules must be obeyed!” mentality is one reason America’s looking at a potential death toll in the hundreds of thousands.
The primary reason it’s not going to be worse is that the private sector is swooping in to save the health care system from the FDA’s regulatory fiasco.
So yes, Massachusetts, let’s definitely pull over those scofflaws phoning their elderly parents to check in on them. Let’s bust those bad guys calling in a fast-food order to feed their families and put a few bucks in the pocket of a local restaurant.
We must have rules. We must have order. We must have revenue!
And that’s how you do a deadly pandemic in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts.
Michael Graham is a regular contributor to the Boston Herald. Follow him on Twitter @IAmMGraham.