Coming soon: If you’re not sober, you won’t be able to start the car | Hacker News Reader

Coming soon: If you’re not sober, you won’t be able to start the car

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20 pointspetethomas26 comments

I'm okay with this being mandated for people with DUIs, but the idea of it becoming a standard feature is disheartening. It's bad enough that internet connectivity is trending towards becoming mandatory. To also mandate that a person surrender biometric data as a requirement for ignition is beyond the pale.

The problem is that by the time you catch someone with a DUI, they might've already caused grievous harm to someone else. Since the US and Canada seem to consistently have a bad DUI problem the next step is to prevent people from driving period if they're drunk.

Have you read A Clockwork Orange? A great book about the moral fallacy of taking away choice in the name of the greater good.

We've already established that we take away choices in the name of the public good. For example, many states have it illegal to text and drive, or to not wear your seatbelt.

Unless you believe both of those should be legal as well, then we're at an impasse.

Think preventing the car from starting is worse than it simply being illegal and that is the point.

What about a drunk girl trying to get away from an assailant? Or any other situation where the risk of getting pulled over is worth it?

We're not just talking about the risk of 'getting pulled over', we're talking about someone driving drunk and risking the lives of everyone else on the road. The fact that people are downplaying the dangers of drunk driving to try and invent a scenario where driving drunk is justified is incredibly silly.

In your example, what if that drunk girl proceeded to kill a family of four in her attempt to drive away? Or started driving on the wrong side of the highway in order to escape?

You could make up any number of scenarios to justify breaking any law. The obvious solution in this case is to add an emergency override which unlocks the car and also calls the police. Because if you're going to bypass the drunk sensor, you better have a damn good reason for it.

Extend your logic a bit. How long until you argue to apply it to hardware inside a human?

Slippery slope is a fallacy for a reason. By your argument anything that takes away any control ever is a bad thing and could lead to thought crime.

By your logic, we might as well just take away free will as well.

Taking away choice and making something illegal are two different things.

I personally believe that both are stupid, but they shouldn't necessarily be illegal.

Not wearing a seatbelt doesn't really affect anyone else, so it shouldn't be illegal IMO. However, I could see an argument for insurance refusing to cover you for medical injuries if you weren't wearing a seatbelt.

Texting and driving is a bit different and I would consider that "reckless driving", which already is an infraction. If you're operating your vehicle in a manner that is unsafe to other road users, you should have your driving privilege suspended. However, just making it a fine makes it seem less serious IMO, and handing out tickets for innocent use of a phone while driving also seems wrong.

If you're not endangering others, you shouldn't get a ticket. I think this should apply to all infractions of the legal code. If you're driving over the limit, but there's nobody around, then you either shouldn't get a ticket or it should be a much smaller one. However, if you are endangering others, the penalty should be far more severe than it is today.

The same goes for alcohol. There are a lot of other ways for you to be driving dangerously, but being slightly over the limit is often safe for many people, while being under the limit could still be dangerous for others. For example, driving while sleepy is often more dangerous than driving drunk, yet I don't think I've heard of anyone getting their license suspended for driving sleepy. Also, driving with screaming kids is also dangerous (as a parent, I've been there).

You should only be pulled over if you present a higher than average risk to other drivers, and that needs to be proven independent of things like your BAC. I don't think, but I also don't think it's fair, especially since some state levels are quite low (e.g. I live in Utah where we have 0.05% limit).

The reason why some states put the level so low is because you shouldn't be driving after any drinks, period. Your argument that 'being slightly over the limit is often safe' does not work, because it relies on people being able to rationally judge how good they are at driving while drunk. Which, as it turns out, generally does not work and leads to accidents.

And even if there's 'no one around', that relies on a judgment call made while drunk and impaired. If you told a lawyer 'Sorry, I didn't think anyone was around when I drunkenly drove into them', you'd be laughed out of court and straight to jail.

Which is why they're illegal. If you drink and drive, you've established that you're putting yourself and others at danger while driving. The same can be true of driving sleepy, but that also happens at a far less rate statistically than driving drunk in the US.

By the time you catch somebody with stupid thoughts they might have already shared them, everyone should go through regular education screening.

I couldn't imagine it becoming a standard since DUIs are revenue generators for states.

> Q: What about people who might try to game the ignition interlock or tamper with it?

> A: Part of our research is also looking at how we would know for certain that the alcohol measurement that we’re making is coming from the driver and not anyone else in the vehicle.

That's a non-sequitur, mentions an issue and skips over how this is going to work. I already heard about existing systems failing if you have too many drunk people in the car. I don't see how that can be avoided with an ambient air sensor. Especially in the extreme "I'm getting drunk by breathing the air you exhale" situations.

Fingerprints

How would a fingerprint prevent ambient alcohol in the air from tampering with your test result?

Next up: blood samples. Then chips (optional of course!;).

This is clearly anti-consumerist, just like those cars that beep when you don’t wear a seatbelt. I don’t care if drunk driving is bad, I would never buy a car with this technology.

Moreover, there are situations in which this is more dangerous. What if you are stuck in a blizzard and drunk in a remote location? What if someone is trying to kill you?

These kind of products are disgusting and Orwellian, I find it surprising that there isn’t more pushback from consumer.

My car makes that beep and it's really frustrating because, a lot of the time, it beeps when I have heavy stuff in the passenger seat. It should just show a light and be done with it.

You can buy these plastic things that clip into the seatbelt so the beeper doesn’t activate. I have one and they work well.

You can prob disable it by editing the CCF (Car Configuration File).

Also, what if I'm the designated driver and I'm taking 3 of my drunk friends home. How likely would this system be to give a false positive and now the responsible person's car won't start until you get a bunch of drunks out of the car and air it out.

I might be ok with requiring this for drivers under 25, but for the general population?

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