I'm not sure how I feel about this. It could save lives but it would be an additional cost that would affect most drivers who don't drink and drive. Also, what happens if the device malfunctions and prevents you from driving your car?
https://www.autoblog.com/2022/09/20/blood-alcohol-monitoring-requirement-ntsb-nhtsa/
There's a more practical solution at 2:30 in this video about business ideas: https://youtu.be/CNY_ql6k_YA
shareI think that’s a fairly reasonable idea.
Better safe than sorry.
I read the article again and now I tend to agree with you. It's like when the seatbelt laws went into effect. Lots of people bitched about it but it has saved countless lives.
shareI really hated helmet and seatbelt laws, I don’t care for new laws, I think we should do what we want but every so often the Lawmakers actually get it right. A dummy doing 80 MPH on a motorbike on the parkway is a public danger and maybe we could all agree to wait a few days before allowing a guy to purchase a semi-automatic rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition.
Some things seem very sketchy, it’s not political, it’s just common sense.
I really didn't like the seatbelt laws but I complied and it became second nature to wear a seatbelt. Good thing because years later I flipped my Honda Accord through a tobacco field in N. Carolina. The car was completely destroyed but I walked away without a scratch. If I wasn't wearing a seatbelt I would have been severely injured or killed.
shareI hated the seatbelt law, it just seemed like the bullshit Gov’t telling us all what to do.
In hindsight, it did save a lot of lives and terrible injuries.
Live and learn man.
Those annoying straps actually saved lives.
I race cars in an amateur capacity - I love seatbelts, harnesses and helmets.
shareAgree. We have the technology, and don't need impaired drivers risking the lives of others on the roads.
shareif the device malfunctions and prevents you from driving your car?
Sorry, that's too complicated. In the US, at least and in Europe, DUIs are very serious business. If impairment can be detected, far better to prevent the infraction.
shareThat's bordering on Minority Report pre-crime style.
shareNot really. If there is an inter-lock, why enable an inebriated person to operate the vehicle ? Its the simplest, least invasive solution. No police needed, no drunk driving.
shareBut what if the device malfunctioned? Also, kinda intrusive to people's freedom. If that's the thinking why not ban guns as well... no guns, no mass shooting.
shareBetter to err on the side of caution. People still have to use seat belts, even though sometimes they malfunction.
Do you think that advising a drunk not to drive, when you have the means to detect that they are, in fact drunk, is somehow preferable to keeping them from moving ? Do inebriated drivers have a 'right' to drive while inebriated ? Clearly they do not.
You could also make the case that people, drunk inside interlocked cars, would no longer be subject to DUI charges, since their cars were for that reason inoperable.
"Better to err on the side of caution."
No, it isn't, not when it comes to freedom. The cost of freedom is inherently less safety. The safest possible condition is being locked up in a padded cell, which ~eliminates even yourself from being a danger to your own safety, and which eliminates nearly all freedom.
"People still have to use seat belts"
Which is also a load of nanny-state horseshit.
"even though sometimes they malfunction."
Not only that, they are sometimes the cause of an injury or death that wouldn't have happened without them. This is especially the case with side impacts, because the seat belt holds you in place so the caving-in door can crush you instead of pushing you toward the other side of the car's interior.
"You could also make the case that people, drunk inside interlocked cars, would no longer be subject to DUI charges, since their cars were for that reason inoperable."
They shouldn't be subject to DUI charges anyway if they weren't caught driving, obviously. DUI is an initialism which stands for driving under the influence.
DON'T wear your seatbelt, freedom-rider. Fight the power !
But if you get caught without it, or vastly worse, driving drunk, you can complain about your freedom in court, at considerable expense and at risk of your driving freedom.
All of which suits most of us just fine.
Your entire post is a non sequitur, and as such, consider it dismissed out of hand. And since you have no arguments of any kind, your tacit concession is noted.
shareThere isn't an argument, you haven't made one. You summarily declare that laws you don't like are an imposition, and I respond that you can do what you like, until you get caught. :)
share"There isn't an argument, you haven't made one."
Your non sequitur, in the form of a laughable attempt to contradict blatant reality, is dismissed.
"You summarily declare that laws you don't like are an imposition"
Since that never happened, this is yet another non sequitur from you, as well as a:
Reading Deficiency Alert
Since you still have no arguments, your tacit concession remains noted.
You win ;)
shareAnd having to challenge an e-ticket because of a hardware failure that has nothing to do with the driver and doesn't affect the roadworthiness of the vehicle isn't? Wow. We've seriously lost our minds.
shareHow come a hardware failure doesn't affect the roadworthiness of the vehicle?
shareBecause it has nothing to do with the mechanical workings of the car aside from being able to turn it over. It's a lot like having a broken radio. It doesn't cause a problem for the safe operation of the vehicle.
shareA drunk driving monitoring system doesn't cause a problem for the safe operation of the vehicle?
shareIf it malfunctions ("hardware failure") it most certainly could.
shareThen it should affect the roadworthiness of the vehicle.
shareNot if it failed in such a way that it still allowed the vehicle to operate.
shareSo it shouldn't allow the vehicle to operate when it fails?
shareIt shouldn't be on vehicles at all. Someone shouldn't be taken to task (contest an e-ticket) because of the failure of an unneeded, state-mandated piece of hardware.
shareAh, ok. That's what we have today. Which is fine, I guess.
I was just responding to the OP's question regarding what if the device (assuming it is already mandated) malfuctions.
Whether it's needed to be mandated in the first place or not was not a concern in my original reply.
This is horrible. This is just another piece of equipment in a car that will fail and will have to be inspected/fixed/replaced. They currently put these devices in the vehicles of people who have been caught driving under the influence BUT these MADD and SADD maniacs want to penalize every driver. There are plenty of sober drivers who are more reckless/dangerous than impaired drivers. These devices also do nothing about people who are high on other drugs.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/11/20/this-us-law-mandates-that-new-cars-have-anti-drink-driving-tech-critics-say-it-s-a-loss-of
I'd only be okay with a device in my car if the BAC limit was raised from .08 to .15. The .08 limit is really low and they kept lowering the limit to deter drunk drivers. The people over .20 are usually messed up and are extremely dangerous to other drivers.
https://kpattorney.com/why-how-08-become-legal-bac-limit/
This will create a new industry of sober spray cans that “breathe” into the BAMS. Or will they also require in-vehicle video monitoring of the test? As if that could not be defeated by pressing a video on your phone against the monitor camera.
Some people will always be assholes and no amount of consumer-level tech precautions will prevent it. Why try in the first place, then? Because it makes money for lawyers.
Homo sapiens is the only species that has overcome natural selection. The problem is: how do we let the assholes kill the themselves off without letting them take desirable stock with them?
What would stop someone from disabling it?
The on-board computer. This would be far from a simple switch. I suppose McGuyver types could find a way to rig the car to drive drunk. But most drunks aren't McGuyver, and I suppose anyone caught drunk in that case, with a baffled safety device, would be subject to further charges.
No prevention is utterly fool-proof. That doesn't negate the benefit of the prevention, say in almost every case.
It probably wouldn't be difficult to disable. The internet would be flooded with simple tutorials.
With that said, I wouldn't be opposed to some kind of passive technology, which warns drivers if they are driving erratically, similar to what's in my car now when I'm backing up, warning of objects, but testing for blood alcohol to start a car is government overreach. Right now this is only legal with a court order, so I don't think its right to put this burden on people who have done absolutely nothing.
Instead, we should focus on increasing the penalties for a conviction of drunk driving. Get these people off the roads for a longer time to begin with. Second offense should mean lengthy jail time and permanent loss of license.
Encrypted firmware isn't at all easy to re-program.
Prevention & enforcement are not mutually exclusive approaches to dealing with the problem. I can understand that some have a lower tolerance for prevention via imposed vehicular restraints than others, but I don't think it can be said that prevention, where feasible and cost-effective, should be opposed out of hand.
The same arguments were made about seat belts. Here is how many lives were saved in the US by seatbelts in a recent year :
Of the 23,824 passenger vehicle occupants killed in 2020, 51% were not wearing seat belts — a 4% increase from 2019.
Seat belts saved an estimated 14,955 lives and could have saved an additional 2,549 people if they had been wearing seat belts, in 2017 alone.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/seat-belts
In 2020, 11,654 people died in alcohol-impaired driving traffic deaths — a 14% increase from 2019. These deaths were all preventable.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
Some persons included in that fatality list (not to mention the many more injured) were not the ones doing the drunk driving.
Still though, all it takes is one person to release a tutorial online. Looking it up, these systems aren't exactly hard to bypass, even for non-Macgyver types. I would personally shut it down on principle and believe many others would do the same thing.
Seat belts and alcohol monitoring devices are completely different animals. Not putting on a seat belt doesn't disable the car. One is common sense for personal safety, while the other is government overreach by forcing law abiding people to prove they haven't committed a crime before they can drive their own car, which is by definition, unjust. Honestly, I don't think this would hold up in the courts. The NTSB has been asking this for a long time and its never come into fruition.
I still think we should put the focus on taking drunk drivers off the road. Its baffling how so many repeat offenders are given their licenses back. Anecdotally, I just read about a 4th time repeat drunk driver in town who was arrested again. Why are these people still allowed to drive?
Stupid beyond words and you'd have to be a moron for supporting it.
I'd rather be free than safe.
Do you wear a seatbelt? Of course you do. So much for being free than safe.
I think it's cute that your stalking me. It looks like I live in your head rent free.
You said you weren't a liberal, I needed a good laugh. The fact that you would support this legislation and obsess about Trump 24hrs a day is proof that you are a liberal.
I don't believe in seat belt or helmet laws either.
So you claim that you are stupid and don't wear a seatbelt. Got it. How many people do you know who have served in the military who are liberals. That's right, I am a US Army veteran. I'm curious tough guy. When did you serve? Coward.
shareWhere did I say that? I didn't. I said I don't believe in seat belt or helmet laws. Too dense to understand the difference?
Only a cunt would throw his service up in someone's face, let alone blindly. Tough guy? We're thumping our chests now, over an internet disagreement? And you still think I'm the stupid one???
"Do you wear a seatbelt? Of course you do. So much for being free than safe."
Personal decision. And trust me, there are plenty of people out there who don't think the government should be up in your business there either. It's odd that people who take any precautions of their own freewill get shouted down by people like you. Fucking stupid is really what it is but whatever.
There is always a balance between discernibly conflicting goods/imperatives - the freedom/safety balance foremost among them.
You can pretend that you are in some sense radically free, but you are not. You have to use blinkers to signal your turns (utilizing your handy blinkers), obey the speed limit (utilizing your handy speedometer), read & obey the posted traffic lights/signs (utilizing your handy tested vision, corrected if necessary by your handy corrective lenses), and are under a legal obligation to refrain from driving after utilizing your freedom to drink, if your BAC is above a certain legal limit.
So you see, you aren't really 'free' of rules/regulations/safety equipment at all. And would be a moron to pretend otherwise.
Of course we're a nation of laws. You're a moron to think that law precludes liberty.
Not to mention how utterly ridiculous it is to spend billions on new technology, that everyone will have to pay for, to drastically inconvenience millions for the actions of just a few. This is government overreach at its finest and idiots like you will cheer it on because it's "for our own good".
44 Billion. Annually. (moron)
Impaired Driving: Get the Facts
Every day, 29 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver.1 This is one death every 50 minutes.1 The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $44 billion.
How big is the problem?
In 2016, 10,497 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for 28% of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.1
Of the 1,233 traffic deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2016, 214 (17%) involved an alcohol-impaired driver.1
In 2016, more than 1 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.3 That’s one percent of the 111 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year (figure below).
Drugs other than alcohol (legal and illegal) are involved in about 16% of motor vehicle crashes.4
Marijuana use is increasing and 13% of nighttime, weekend drivers have marijuana in their system.5
Marijuana users were about 25% more likely to be involved in a crash than drivers with no evidence of marijuana use, however other factors–such as age and gender–may account for the increased crash risk among marijuana users.
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html
I really don't care how many die or how much it costs. This is not the solution and there's no way to justify it. Only a braindead liberal thinks it's a good idea to punish the people that didn't do it.
shareOK, and if you get arrested for drunk driving and you kill someone because of it immediate death penalty.
No fucking appeals.
I'm okay with that. I think if you kill someone at all through malice or negligence, the penalty should be much higher than it is. Death for murderers, life for the negligent. Medals for those who kill criminals in self defense.
share