Do you always drive at or below the speed limit? Most of us don’t. Technology now in cars will make sure we never exceed the speed limit; still more dystopian control of our lives. 

Something wicked this way comes – from my home state of Virginia, which is about to throttle back convicted “speeders” by giving traffic judges the authority to require their vehicles be fitted with speed-limiters. But that’s not really accurate – because every new vehicle already has speed-limiting “technology” – the word always used in cases such as this – embedded in their programming.

It just hasn’t been fully activated yet.

Implying it is only a matter of when it will be fully activated rather than if it will be.

Virginia’s move to empower judges to impose speed limiters on those convicted of “speeding” (defined in this case as driving 100 MPH or faster, which encompasses the driving of many of the enforcers of the speed limit but they are of course exempted) is the brainchild of a nanny lobby that styles itself Families for Safe Streets. Etymologically – as well as psychologically – the styling is of a piece with the Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Patriot Act in that the stylings are designed to quell any questioning a priori. After all, what sort of cretin could question “safe” streets? Or would question the importance of getting “drunks” off the road?

Or be opposed to a “Patriot”act?

“Safety” is thus equated with driving the speed limit – unless, of course, you are an enforcer of the speed limit, in which case it is safe to drive as fast as you like.

But here’s the important thing to bear in mind:

Once the precedent has been set it will be used as the basis for a general imposition. That is, using the already-built-into-new-cars speed limiting “technology” to throttle the “speeding” of drivers who drive less than 100 MPH. Eventually – inevitably – it will serve as the logical basis for electronically throttling “speeding” altogether. Because it follows. Because it is logical. Because if you give the cretins who insist that the streets must be made “safe” by electronically throttling the speed of those who drive 100 MPH an inch they will take a mile.

They always do.

Consider the related history – and example – of the progression against what is styled the effort to curb “drunk” driving, very much desired by “mothers” and so very hard to argue against. It began with the presumption that driving drunk is bad – because drunk drivers tend to wreck. That puts other drivers at risk and so ought to be discouraged by punishing it.

That morphed to the point that “drunk” means having had anything at all to drink. And not even necessarily that – in that everyone, including people who have had nothing alcoholic to drink, are presumed to be “drunk” until they satisfy a law enforcer that they are not “drunk.” This business reached its ne plus ultra when, in the waning days of the Biden Thing’s “administration” – the word is bracketed within air-fingers-quote-marked for the same reason that it would be necessary to so bracket what occurred in the movie, Deliverance a “heavy petting” scene – the hair-plugged Scranton Sniffer decreed that every new vehicle sold must be equipped with “technology” to detect “impaired” driving by 2026. “Impaired” is the new word used to characterize any form of driving that involves not following every traffic law to the letter, especially  “speeding” – by equating it with “drunk” driving.

Brilliant, isn’t it?

Bet your  bippie the same progression is intended here. Begin by going after the hard-to-defend minority who do drive drunk – or who drive 100-plus MPH – especially in school zones – and then gradually, incrementally, attenuate the definition of “drunk” to the point that it encompasses anyone who drinks (anything) or who drives any faster than whatever the speed limit is.

The mechanism (more finely, the programming) for this is already in place, as already mentioned. Every new vehicle – and most vehicles made since circa 2022 – have a “technology” styled speed limit assistance. It does not “assist” anything. What it does is keep track of your speed – relative to the speed limit – wherever you are driving. It works by comparing the GPS data about the road you’re driving on – including the posted speed limit of the road you’re on – with data about the speed you’re driving, which the car’s computer knows. If you are driving faster than whatever the speed limit is, the system will “assist” you by flashing a warning icon on the dash play to inform you of the fact, as if you didn’t know and oh-my-gosh I’d better slow down.

It is of a piece with the seat belt “reminder” won’t stop harassing you with obnoxiously loud chimes/buzzers until you do “buckle up” – as if you had no idea you’d forgotten to. The idea here is to punish you for not bucking up.

Not to “remind” you to.

And that is how speed limit assistance will be used. To prevent you from “speeding.” It is already being used this way in Europe and it is going to be used here. Else why would every new vehicle be equipped with this “technology”? More finely, why is every new vehicle equipped with this “technology” that few, if any buyers asked for? Note that it isn’t just an option put out there to see whether people are interested enough to pay extra for it. Rather, it is just being embedded in all vehicles – as if in anticipation of a mandate-to come.

So what’s coming online in Virginia is probably just the first of many coming-on-lines in other states – and then nationally.

The good news is that older cars not equipped with this “technology” cannot be mechanically throttled back. The bad news is that the cretins behind this will almost certainly try to close that “loophole” – the term of derision used whenever someone manages to avoid being screwed over by the government – by requiring that all vehicles used on “public” (that is, government) roads must be equipped with this “technology.” And the really sweet thing about that is that older vehicles made before drive-by-wire throttle and computer-controlled everything can’tm as a practical matter, be retrofitted with this “technology.”

They will thus be taken off the road without actually outlawing them. This being the same technique being used right now to take cars with engines off the road – by requiring them to comply with regulations that only battery-powered vehicles can comply with.

Brilliant, again.

But only if you let them get away with it – by thinking it won’t affect you. And by believing that if you give them an inch they won’t take a mile.