GET OFF MY CAR: When the State Determines What Rubber Meets the Road – Tired in California.
As purely an interested but unaffected and unassociated bystander watching from afar – and, lemme add, a truly horrified one at that – I find myself doubting that there ever will come a time that the majority of the state will willingly throw off the authoritarian bonds that are now constricting the very lifeblood that used to pulse through, arguably, one of the most vibrant, unfettered places to live in the country.
From Sacramento to the various commissions and agencies throughout the state, there are so many levels of unelected and enabled satraps who, at the stroke of a pen, can issue edicts affecting the way tens of millions of citizens live their lives. Citizens who have little recourse, in fact, often have little warning that some bureaucrat is once again fixin’ to rock their world with a regulation concerning something as mundane, but essentially a right-to-choose, as what replacement tire you prefer and can afford when you have a blow-out or the whole set goes old baldy.
And yet, God bless their pointy little bureaucratic, Big Brotherish heads. That’s exactly where we are.
The California Energy Commission has voted to phase out the sale of replacement tires that do not meet its desired energy-efficiency threshold.
Perhaps as much as 70% of tires currently sold.