Proof of insurance required to buy gas?

You can tell the right-wing Hawaii Senate has the insurance racket in its back pocket caressing its pelvic area.

Last month, lawmakers approved a resolution to urge the state insurance commissioner to find a way to require motorists to present proof of car insurance just to buy (ppphh!) gas.

The resolution appears to be typed on a typewriter and thus looks like an old Last Word from 1993 - except that its political stance is the precise polar opposite:

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2009/Bills/SCR101_.pdf

Let's get a few things straight here. While lawmakers complain that 1 in 5 drivers in Hawaii are uninsured, studies keep showing that a much lower percentage of cars involved in accidents are uninsured. Sounds to me like uninsured drivers are actually safer than the insured! And I would believe that.

And since the resolution cites the fact that the rate of uninsured drivers will increase because of unemployment, why aren't legislators doing anything about unemployment?

This insurance card proposal is driven by insurance company greed. Its legality is highly questionable too, as it runs roughshod over the notion of requiring probable cause.

Is this the country's future? Unless people push back, prepare for the worst. How many Americans 30 years ago would have ever thought we'd see fascist policies like Real ID?

But this may not matter much. I can seriously see the day when right-wing lawmakers require cars to carry an electronic box that lets authorities shut the car off by remote control if they find out the driver flunked high school 20 years earlier or has an outstanding cable bill.

So it looks like most folks won't even make it to the gas station to have to worry about being carded.