Dan Walters: Nava milks publicity from crash

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/4/7 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

It was predictable that when a gasoline tank truck crashed and the ensuing fire melted a freeway lane connecting San Francisco and Oakland, some publicity-hungry politician would milk it -- and Santa Barbara Assemblyman Pedro Nava was Johnny on the spot.

Within hours, Nava was complaining to the media that the driver of the 8,600-gallon tanker, James Mosqueda, had been licensed to drive hazardous cargos despite a criminal record that included felony drug and burglary charges. Mosqueda survived the crash, walked away and hailed a cab to take him to a hospital to be treated for severe burns.

Nava rushed to the crash site and declared, "A family driving on the highway and looking at a gasoline tanker truck out the window assumes that driver has met the highest standards. We now know that is not the case."

Nava, who chairs the Assembly's Transportation Committee and the Legislature's Joint Committee on Emergency Services and Homeland Security, pledged to press for regulatory change, saying, "The requirements are substandard."

Wait a minute. There's absolutely no evidence that Mosqueda was in any way impaired, and every indication that it was a simple human error -- perhaps taking a curving ramp a bit too fast -- that had particularly spectacular results because of the type of vehicle and cargo involved. Mosqueda's prison record did not prevent him from getting driving permits, nor should it have done so. By all accounts, he paid his debt to society, reformed and became a very solid citizen -- even offering to pay for his cab ride to the emergency room.

...Mosqueda should be held up as a model of rehabilitation -- just the sort of reform that Nava's fellow Democrats are clamoring to implement -- not be the target of a politician's cheap shot.

[hsalaw]

When you find a politician trying to make political points from a tragedy, you can assume he or she is a dem.