My son was killed by a speeding driver. A new bill could save others | Opinion
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’t make it.
I left that hospital with my son’s blood on my face and my clothes.
The driver had been going 54 mph in a 40-mph zone. That gap — 14 miles per hour over the limit — 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.
I spent months grieving. Then, I decided to use my pain for a purpose. For years afterward, I served on Fresno’s 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.
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’s story — and the stories of other families like ours — inspired her to author Assembly Bill 2276, the “Stop Super Speeders Act.”
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 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.
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.
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.
What makes this bill right for the Central Valley is what it does not do; it does not take away anyone’s license. It does not strand a farmworker 40 miles from the fields or a parent 20 miles from their child’s school. It says to a convicted super speeder: You can keep driving, but within the law.
In a region where a driver’s license is an economic lifeline, that distinction matters.
California lost 1,303 people to speed-related crashes in 2023 — 32% of all traffic deaths in the state, which is higher than the national average. 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.
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, and the evidence supports this bill.
I have spent years making sure Paul’s 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.
Joe Martinez is a Fresno resident and a member of Families for Safe Streets.
This story was originally published April 18, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "My son was killed by a speeding driver. A new bill could save others | Opinion."