Autism Designation on Virginia Driver's Licenses

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https://malegislature.gov/Bills/188/House/H3003 is the text of the Massachusetts bill on an autism designation on a card. I find it a much more reasonable approach. The little details are clearly more towards helping autistic individuals.

Did the Massachusetts bill pass? It looks like it was last year? Also, were parents/guardians able to register people? The VA one does not look, at first glance, like it would include people who do not directly request the designation, but in VA, as I already said, people other than the individual can have the designation put on the license. The individual can have it removed once they are not under guardianship/parental authority, 1. if they know it is there in the first place and 2. if they can do the steps to have it removed.

Hopefully they have forgotten about it.

25% Progress
Introduced: Jan 22, 2013
Has not passed the House
Has not passed the Senate
Has not been signed into law.

MA H3003 | 2013-2014 | 188th General Court

No. Way. In. Hell.

I have spent a huge amount of time, money, and effort doing everything in my power to "look normal" to keep myself and my family safe.

There is NO WAY IN HELL I am going to put that information out there for every bullying, manipulative, bigoted, power-mad thug in uniform to use against me at their pleasure.

NO. Not voluntarily, not involuntarily, no way at all.

No yellow stars for me, thanks. Or anyone else, either.

If anyone wants to write to legislators in VA, the bill is now in the VA House of Delegates Subcommittee 3. I have some talking points/short letter and the email addresses of the legislators on that committee as well as the whole Committee on Transportation. Since the supporters of this legislation have said they see it as a model for the whole nation, if you want to say something, I encourage you to do so. You can contact me at my inbox here or go to my blog and the contact page there. I will send you the email addresses and talking points if you want them. I am trying to make it easier for people to contact the VA General Assembly. I won't send you ANY other emails other than this, if you write to me.

http://paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.b ... icy_7.html

Thank you!

Great real pal. Cops don't care about the autistic community. In fact, judges don't care either.

Contact people if you want to write a line or two. These are members of the subcommittee to which the bill has been assigned: Virginia House Committee on Transportation, Subcommittee 3.

Talking points (some suggestions) are:

1. possible discrimination/safety issues. The bill may cause more harm than good.
2. ADA employment violations. The language of the bill does not say how the designation will appear although sponsors say it will be a bar or other code, so the language needs to be amended.
3. not voluntary if parents put designation on for those under 18 or under guardianship
4. possible HIPAA violations for those who do not give their own consent

These are the main categories of concern people have told me. There might be others.

[email protected] (chair of entire Transportation Committee)
[email protected] (chair)
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When I first suggested this people thought I should take off the tinfoil hat. Not long after, I then casually mentioned to my insurance company how I was moving out of my parents house (a couple years ago) and will change address in a couple months and wanted to inquire as to getting new cards with the updated address. Suddenly, I got a letter telling me my rates were increasing by $600 saying that I was moved to a 'higher risk' category because other people had access to my vehicle and my parents were driving my car. No amount of explaining that it was MY CAR AND ONLY MY CAR would work. They gave an ultimatum: either hand over your parents licenses or be dropped as a client, which would result in my rates being doubled or tripled. Of course, that begs the question of what would they have done if my parents refused or didn't drive but I wasn't about to find out. I had to comply with this blackmail but switched companies soon after to one that didn't care who I lived with. Gotta love how they punish someone with being honest! Another company also tried to raise my insurance from $1000 to $2500 as I admitted I had a week I didn't drive and didn't have insurance coverage when switching vehicles so that made me a "new" high risk driver. If I kept my mouth shut nothing would have happened at all.

I imagine an ASD would work the same way: even with ZERO accidents, ZERO tickets, ZERO claims and ZERO hassles in 11 years of driving I would be labelled a 'high risk' driver and put in with the drunk drivers or seen as 'unfit' to drive even with no evidence suggesting it. Yet another reason why I'm glad in some ways I was never diagnosed formally. Most 'experts' cannot look past their textbooks in my experience.

There are clearly benefits and drawbacks to this.

The benefits are that when a person with autism encounters the police, they have something to verify their autism. We have had stories on this forum of people who encounter the police and due to their autistic behavior, they are treated with excess suspension. This gives the police a way to verify that person's story is true, and yes, autism training for emergency services workers is increasing.

The clear downside is that it becomes a "scarlet letter" that anyone who sees your ID.

I have to admit I always said I hated cops and didn't trust them but I've have a number of encounters with the police lately for some bizarre reason (mostly traffic related). Every single time they believed me without question and they seemed to 'get' me instantly and treated me with respect. Same with customs agents and airport security too: never anything less than professionalism and understanding even though I'm obviously very nervous..... so far. One even explained that they got a call about me from a neighbour but could tell instantly I was a decent person and explained how they are legally required to investigate and even thanked me and apologized for the inconvenience. Neighbour must have overhead and misinterpreted a typical Aspie direct statement I made... oops! Being male, living alone, being relatively emotionally immature, 6'6" and in shape doesn't help either.

Having said that, one thing I do worry about in the back of my mind is being 'caught' during a meltdown by a more rookie/ignorant authority figure, having it misinterpreted as a psychotic episode or something dangerous or my usual over explaining like I did in school being misinterpreted as trying to hide my guilt, being locked in a jail cell or psych ward for observation and due to my extreme food intolerance, terrifying claustrophobia and tendency to get angry when I lose control of my autonomy or hyper vigilance of being target for bullying, being stuck in there a long time over a VERY simple misunderstanding. I actually wish there was a way to 'voluntarily' (that is, without it being on some record but otherwise treated like everyone else) be locked up for a day so I would know what to expect and not lose my cool like I do when I am in overwhelming and unfamiliar situations.

As I see it, having such a designation should help on paper but in practice, I would think you would be labelled as 'dangerous' and 'mentally ill' at every turn. FFS, even so called experts know less about Autism than I do and I have to frequently explain things to them! One 'expert' seem to believe that people with Autism were not able to function in normal society at all so I couldn't be on the spectrum

Thank goodness no such legislation has come up in Oregon.

However, I'll be VERY P****D OFF if such legislation is brought up in either the
US House or the US Senate.

Is anyone here in or near Richmond VA? The bill is being heard in subcommittee on Monday Feb. 17, yes, that's THIS Monday. The supporters of the bill plan to be there to testify.
Time and Place: 4:00 PM/GAB 5th Floor East Conference Room

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504 ... H190030217

Requesting permission to use a quote, without identifying you, to put in a note to delegates. The Chair of the committee has come out in support of the Virginia autism ID on licenses bill, which will make it much harder to stop. I will not use your name. I have collected about 20 permissions so far. If you would like me to use your quote to send to the legislature, please send me a message in my inbox here or contact me at my other email address, which you can find here: http://paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.b ... icy_7.html

This is time-sensitive. The subcommittee decides whether it will pass to the whole committee. The committee chair throwing weight behind it will make it harder but some of the legislators I have talked to seem sensitive to the issue. The meeting was canceled (I drove all the way to Richmond....) and will now be held on February 24 at 4 pm.

Agreed. Ever since the Newtown incident, I fear that many Aspies have into hiding because of fearing to be linked to Adam Lanza. Why don't neurotypicals understand? Aspies don't want to kill people, we just want to be left alone. Live normal, independent lives like other people do

Probably they keep this on a back burner with some small committee designated to "monitor it", being paid an extra sum each month for sitting on this little "committee" and in 3 years when there is another shooting that can in any way be attributed to anyone who it is even being discussed as may possibly be on the spectrum, they will trot this pending little legislation out and use it to justify tagging everyone on the spectrum and herding us all off to some pig f*****g camp in the Appalachian mountains.

Oh my dear god is my reaction to this bill.

I have a gay black friend (who is also tall and broad shouldered, and looks like a ninja turtle, but that's beside the point). He drives a pretty nice car and is a manager at a restaurant, so he's out late a lot. Anyone want to guess how many times he's been pulled over and mistreated? Don't guess, because I honestly don't know it's been so many times. I'm sure if it said "gay black man" on his drivers license he'd have to give up and get a bicycle.

I have a neurological disorder that can make me appear drunk at times. I carry a statement from my doctor saying that I have this disease and it causes these specific symptoms. If you want to explain your "status" to people this is a good way to do it.