On June 5, 2013, my 21-year-old son, Paul Martinez, was struck and killed by a speeding driver in Fresno. I got the phone call no parent ever expects. I rushed to the hospital. Paul fought for an hour while a team of trauma doctors worked desperately to save him. He didn\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n
I left that hospital with my son\u2019s blood on my face and my clothes.<\/p>\n
The driver had been going 54 mph in a 40-mph zone. That gap \u2014 14 miles per hour over the limit \u2014 was the difference between life and death. At that speed, traffic experts say, 90% of pedestrians who are struck will die. Paul was in the majority.<\/p>\n
I spent months grieving. Then, I decided to use my pain for a purpose. For years afterward, I served on Fresno\u2019s bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee. I testified at city council meetings, wrote op-eds, talked to the media and joined Families for Safe Streets to fight for the changes that could have saved Paul.<\/p>\n
Along the way, I worked on the staff of Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria, D-Merced, when she served on the Fresno City Council. Soria has said that Paul\u2019s story \u2014 and the stories of other families like ours \u2014 inspired her to author Assembly Bill 2276<\/a>, the \u201cStop Super Speeders Act.\u201d<\/p>\n AB 2276 would create a pilot program requiring Intelligent Speed Assistance devices on the vehicles of drivers convicted of reckless driving on a highway, street racing or driving over 100 miles per hour. ISA technology<\/a> uses GPS and speed limit data to physically prevent a vehicle from exceeding the speed limit. If you have such a device, it is simply impossible to go 70 in a 50 miles per hour zone, for example.<\/p>\n Speed-limiting technology has been used in commercial fleets for decades. AB 2276 applies it where it is most urgently needed: The small group of drivers who have already been convicted of the most extreme, dangerous behavior on our roads.<\/p>\n This bill is not a piece of legislation that came down from Sacramento. It came up from the streets of Fresno, from the families who have already lost someone, and from a community that has waited long enough.<\/p>\n What makes this bill right for the Central Valley is what it does not do; it does not take away anyone\u2019s license. It does not strand a farmworker 40 miles from the fields or a parent 20 miles from their child\u2019s school. It says to a convicted super speeder: You can keep driving, but within the law.<\/p>\n In a region where a driver\u2019s license is an economic lifeline, that distinction matters.<\/p>\n California lost 1,303 people to speed-related crashes<\/a> in 2023 \u2014 32% of all traffic deaths in the state<\/a>, which is higher than the national average<\/a>. In the San Joaquin Valley, a crash on a rural highway can mean a 30-minute ride to the nearest trauma center, and that distance is the difference between life and death. I know what that distance means because I lived it.<\/p>\n We already apply this logic to drunk drivers. Ignition interlock devices are required for DUI convicts in California. Nobody calls that government overreach. AB 2276 does the same thing for drivers convicted of reckless driving, street racing or going over 100 miles per hour. The California Association of Highway Patrolmen supports this bill<\/a>, and the evidence supports this bill.<\/p>\n I have spent years making sure Paul\u2019s death was not just a statistic. This bill is the closest thing I have seen to the change that could have saved him. The legislature should pass it.<\/p>\n Joe Martinez is a Fresno resident and a member of Families for Safe Streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On June 5, 2013, my 21-year-old son, Paul Martinez, was struck and killed by a speeding driver in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[11997,112,8019,114,113,32476,119214,31338],"class_list":["post-275564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-esmeralda-soria","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-city-council","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-miles-per-hour","tag-paul-martinez","tag-speed-limit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}