Why we need government regulation

It’s been a tragic month in my little community of Plain City.

On August 3, two of my ward members, Paul and Connie Short, were returning from a family vacation with their daughter Angie, their son-in-law Justin, and their little eight month old grandson Hudson. Just south of Island Park, a Hummer crossed over the line and hit them head on. Connie and her little grandson were killed, and Justin and Angie were grievously injured.

On August 21, Doug Post and his wife Randy were heading to Ogden on Highway 89 when a Chevy Tahoe crossed into oncoming traffic and hit their Toyota Prius head on. Both were killed instantly. Doug and Randy left eight children, including their youngest son who had been in the mission field only six weeks. Some of you may know the Post family. I officially became a Democrat in the Post’s living room while attending my first neighborhood caucus meeting in March 2002. In addition to being respected, long time Plain City residents, both were devout Democrats, and had held Democratic cottage meetings in their home for years. Randy was elected last April as treasurer of the Weber County Democrats. They were very dear friends.

In addition to the obvious, eerie similarities between these two tragic accidents, there was another that was not so obvious. In both instances, there was a mismatch of the front bumper heights. This resulted in severe injury and death to the lower vehicles, and only minor injuries to the drivers of the vehicles with taller bumpers. It wasn’t just vehicle size, either; Paul was driving a 4x4 Dodge Club Cab that was just as heavy as the Hummer. The main problem was bumper height mismatch.

Since I work in the automotive safety industry, I know a little about this problem. A search of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) website on the problem of bumper height mismatch indicates they are “studying the issue”. Although no problem is simple, even a third grader could tell you accidental injuries and deaths could be reduced if bumper heights were more uniform on vehicles.

We were discussing the Island Park accident at work the other day, and one of my co-workers surprised me. This guy is about as conservative as they come. But in response to this accident, he exclaimed with a great deal of passion, “They ought to charge the NHTSA regulators with manslaughter”. I looked at my friend with shock; it’s not something I would have expected him to say. I asked him, “What about the ‘limited government’ thing you keep talking about”. His response: The Constitution clearly gives the government the right to regulate interstate commerce, and highway safety falls into that category. He was fervent in his belief that the NHTSA regulators were complicit in the deaths of Connie and her infant grandson.

Something Garrison Keillor wrote applies here. “The government is there to do battle with those who would sell you cars that are firebombs or TV sets that cause cancer in small children or vitamins that make hair sprout on your palms or hamburgers made from deceased Springer spaniels. Every year the bank examiners come around to look at the books and make sure the president of First Texas Trust isn’t siphoning your money to his account in Geneva – how did the Republicans manage to make this an issue? You can’t suddenly change the rules to suit yourself. You can’t stop the train and kick off the people you don’t like. You can’t tower over people and roar and screech and spray saliva on them. You can’t prey on the preoccupied and slip in a 2% surcharge on the electric bill and thereby filch a billion dollars a few cents at a time. You can’t sell bad meat or water down the beer or charge 25% interest. You can’t put a quarter in the collection plate and take a dollar out.”

Our nation is less safe, less clean, and less fair today than it was eight years ago because people have been running things that are ideologically opposed to “regulation”. We obviously must be vigilant against unnecessary regulation, and I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to review every regulation passed after a few years – and kill it if it isn’t doing what it was intended. On the other hand, what is government for, if not to create a set of fair ground rules for us to live by that will hopefully make life a little more fair and predictable? Although “might have beens” are never certain, a little more oversight by the government might have saved some precious lives in my grieving little town of Plain City.