Another one for the "you just can’t make this stuff up" files… Democrat legislator Curran Price has introduced legislation that would explore requiring California automobiles replace their existing unobtrusive license plates with electronic signs — mini billboards. The state would then sell advertising on them. In the proposal, the ads would only pop up if the car was stationary at least four seconds.
Are you kidding?
My car is my car. I don’t want a billboard on my car. Period. Never mind the fact that I might not like a particular product (or political candidate?) advertising on my car’s mini-billboard, the bigger issue is that I don’t want an advertisement on my car at all.
Look, I "get it" that the right-sizing of state government to what can be afforded through the existing state tax code — it’s not easy for all of those people in the private sector to have to make cuts in their spending, either.
I also don’t want to discourage creative and "out of the box" thinking.
But for my part, this particular idea is a non-starter. Where would it end? We could soon see state-owned billboards everywhere and on everything. And the victim would be the property and/or privacy rights of those who own the objects or places on which the state would impose their ads.