Drunken-Driving Warning Systems Would Be Required for New Cars Under U.S. Bill
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I was in the military when Congress banned smoking in much of the military and other federal buildings but exempted themselves.
Person saying taxes should be higher for everyone -- what's stopping them from paying more right now?
If it's a step I haven't already taken myself, I can't even conceive of mandating that everyone do it before I start, but that's just too alien a concept it seems.
In a similar bit of hypocrisy, I feel the same way about drinking underage and the number of people who are perfectly ok ramping up punishments for the same "crimes" they themselves committed -- it's just the timeline in a different direction now.
See all the morality crusaders who are also secretly sexting teenagers
Source please.
Even if what you are saying is true, are you claiming that installing these devices on the cars of people who routinely drive drunk would not save lives?
Source - me. I'm sure. Please read carefully.
Also, it's not like they've presented large scale trials of this working.
> Even if what you are saying is true, are you claiming that installing these devices on the cars of people who routinely drive drunk would not save lives?
Am I claiming that? The discussion is about putting devices on all cars, not repeat offenders, so no.
Classy.
> Am I claiming that? The discussion is about putting devices on all cars, not repeat offenders, so no.
And yet, "cars of repeat offenders" is a subset of "all cars".
Because me sending random cash to the federal government does absolutely nothing, and higher taxes can pay for actual programs. There's a huge difference between exempting yourself from a new mandate you enforce on everyone else, and simply waiting for a universal mandate before acting yourself.
Libraries, fire stations, universal K-12 education? Certainly imperfect, but def benefit from coordination. Health care too - a lack of universal coordination makes life difficult.
On the private sector side, many companies are great examples of coordination payoffs (I trade entrepreneurial risk/reward for consistent benefits).
Why though? If you found out that many members of MADD had installed these devices would it change your opinion on requiring it for everyone else? If you found that someone campaigning for higher tax rates actually did make generous contributions, would it change your opinion on raising the rates? Somehow I suspect not, in fact I would hope you wouldn't be so easily swayed! So then we've not pushed the argument forward at all, just taken a detour down an irrelevant cul-de-sac in the hopes of finding a gotcha.
At least I would respect the argument. Right now I see too many people proposing the use of force to achieve something they don't believe in enough to do themselves.
Which really just means 'no.' So like I said, just a big waste of time, the argument for or against these drunk-driving systems is about whether the good for society is worth the cost not about who's making the argument or whether you respect them.
However, I can with zero hypocrisy argue that everyone should have to do this before being allowed on the road, including myself. We can't tell who needs to have these installed, so we have to specify "everybody" for it to be effective. That would cover myself, which is annoying, but I would still gain a benefit from it would decrease my chances of someone else crashing into me while drunk.
And, I should not need to tell you this, but what is stopping me from paying higher taxes right now is that that is not a thing you can do. There is no voluntary tax payment.
They have the opportunity to get one person closer to "everybody" but choose not to, so instead they choose to use the government to force people to do this.
You argue that the marginal benefit of you doing it on your own is too little for you to do it. Then you propose using force to add up a whole lot of "too littles" to make into something.
>If I do not drink and drive, why would I pay money to install a system to detect if I drink and drive? I would be throwing money out the window for zero gain.
And they propose to make millions of people waste this money when they don't believe in it enough to do it for themselves.
No, I argue that the benefit is zero, since I do not drive drunk, and the device will prevent exactly zero instances of drunk driving.
> And they propose to make millions of people waste this money when they don't believe in it enough to do it for themselves.
Please re-read my post. I explained the reasoning there already. The point is that:
a) We do not know who needs to have this installed.
b) That means the only way for it to be effective is to make everyone install it.
c) However, I know that I am not one of those who needs it installed, therefore, there is zero benefit to me installing it on my own.
All of this is perfectly non-hypocritical.
I don’t own a car, so no. But a bike is my primary means of traffic. Do I get no say in traffic safety that impacts me?
> Person saying taxes should be higher for everyone -- what's stopping them from paying more right now?
I also do this. California allows tax payers to pay taxes to a couple dozen special funds. I usually kick in extra for the rape kit tests and coastal preservation funds.
BTW, arguing bothsideism is one of the least effective ways to analyze policy. Focus on the specifics. Even though I support this mandate, one of the downsides is it costs $80/month to keep ignition locks calibrated. How does the federal government plan to make this equitable?
I write this as someone who has both been hit by a drunk bike rider and unintentionally hurt in a bar fight that wasn’t even involving me.
“I’ll believe in Climate Change when people stop flying in private jets”
“People can always pay more taxes on their own.”
“People should give up fossil fuels if they believe in climate change “
Sounds like you’ve bought into how we play politics.
When we discuss inflation it’s:“Remember Jimmy Carter”
No one ever discusses the Fed, etc and the causes of inflation.
Oh well, at least try not to be part of the problem and understand that it’s mostly about manipulating people emotionally
Now, I think cameras in our cars is something I hate and will fight against for other reasons, but your whole "do it yourself before mandating others" is a bad faith argument that makes no sense and is only used to distract from practical solutions in many areas.
And we already have systems for putting these systems in people's cars after they drive drunk. This new system is specifically targeting people who haven't been caught driving drunk. As such, MADD and Congress are absolutely in the targeted demographic for this bill. Frankly, given how often congresspeople get caught driving drunk, they should be probably be the first group to get them.
I would be utterly stunned if Congress isn't somehow exempt though. They'll leave a loophole for themselves, probably via not requiring the sensors to be retrofitted on imported cars or similar.
No, I absolutely don't think they need it. Nor do I need it. But the discussion is about putting it in cars for everyone. They think I need to have a more expensive car, but they don't want to make their own cars more expensive until they can mandate that I do as well.
> "do it yourself before mandating others" is a bad faith argument
It's not a bad faith argument, and I've tried to live my life like this. One major consideration when I left the military is that as I moved up in rank I was going to have to enforce rules that I wouldn't actually follow myself.
People are very quick to use the force of law on others.
> Your stupid ass ideology is harming your ability to view the world practically. I'll keep my ideology, thank you. Leadership isn't about driving the people before me.
Of course I understand what it's like when you've been reigning in frustration and then it boils over, but still—we all need to take responsibility not for venting that into the threads here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines like this multiple times recently. Can you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart? It's not ok to lash out at others, call names, go on the attack, etc., just because they're wrong or you feel they are. That doesn't help anyone.
- It doesnt use breathalyzers, it uses safety systems similar as those for cruise control.
- It would be installed at the factory by manufacturers.
- It would be mandated by 2026, no different than how other basic vehicle safety equipment has been mandated for vehicles over time: seatbelts, airbags, reverse cams, third brake light, and so on.
My personal goal is to never again own a car with a screen (especially a touchscreen), or with any kind of radio transmitter/transceiver to track and report anything back to the mfr. (And I'm an IoT guy!)
Combined with an understanding of the technology involved, executive rule making, and the most probable implementation for liability and profit on the part of the car companies. And this federal mandate will deny citizens abilities to disbale telemetry or the network functions of the car. That is how it will play out.
Soon if it breaks "you tried to disable it, that's a crime." If you potentially say something someone powerful doesn't like or your social credit score drops low enough "Sorry your driving privileges have been revoked."
I know it sounds good on the surface but this then recognizes that the government has a legitimate right to arbitrarily revoke your access to a motor vehicle that you've purchased and owned.
EDIT: Better yet since it is for "saving lives" and "safety" let's just ban alcohol all together that way we completely eliminate the risk of drunk driving altogether.
They do. That is what losing your license is. They've always had this right. It is a good thing that they do.
They've only had that power (in the US) since the late 1940s and early 1950s when licensing became a national thing.
And there's a hell of a lot of procedure and safeguards that prevent them from exercising that power arbitrarily.
You only need a driver's license to drive on public roads. This system changes that dynamic, because the government can stop you from driving on private property as well.
I think the proper term for this is pearl-clutching, but in any event I absolutely hate when activists use wanton hyperbole. Yes, drunk drivers cause casualties, but is it really such a nightmare that requires integrating breathalyzers in every new car? I'd venture the majority of Americans would say no.
Additionally, I've become so disillusioned with American Democracy that I'm no longer proud of our style of government. The fact that Congress can pass such a wide-ranging law on the narrowest of majorities and each little politician can jam special interest provisions in makes me so angry. Congress has the power to operate in whatever little silly way it wants and this leads to such weird parliamentary chicanery.
Imagine the classic "do we build an expensive overpass with a big span or a cheap one with a central support someone may crash into" problem that is often found in engineering ethics classes. We can't have that discussion here. It will be derailed with all sorts of BS.
>but is it really such a nightmare that requires integrating breathalyzers in every new car?
If the cost were zero, sure. But it's not zero. It'll cost tons of money and even more hours of needless frustration.
If it's cheap enough (after considering all of the above) then yeah, maybe something like this could make sense. I do feel like it should be up to the ones proposing the legislation to prove that though before any new regulations are passed. Unfortunately, I suspect the fact that this measure is being bundled together with a trillion dollar spending package makes that unlikely.
Drunk driving is a significant factor in road safety and based on the numbers for 2019, accounts for over 1/4 of the traffic fatalities in the US. When you consider the number of people who have lost friends and family to drunk drivers, it is absolutely reasonable that there are a lot of people for whom this is a legitimately emotional topic.
I am not familiar enough with the details of this proposal to know if it is a good idea. I do know enough to see that you also seem to be unclear as to what this proposal actually consists of; it absolutely doesn't push for integrating breathalyzers in every car or even in every new car.
One of the issues I see in American Democracy is that people are insufficiently interested in getting their facts straight.
I genuinely believe this is indeed a deliberate overreaction on the part of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. I see their statements as catastrophizing.
>"I do know enough to see that you also seem to be unclear as to what this proposal actually consists of; it absolutely doesn't push for integrating breathalyzers in every car or even in every new car."
This is one of the hazards of vaguely worded laws crammed into pass-or-die reconciliation bills. We really have no idea how to satisfy this now that it is codified into law. It might just be nothing, or it could be something intrusive. I doubt Congress will go back and pass a new law or amend this because of all the gridlock.
What's so horrible about a breathalyzer in every car? People get used to losing unimportant freedoms very quickly and easily. The seatbelt was initially viewed the same way.
Edit: In addition, detecting the level of alcohol is a much more difficult and non-straightforward problem then checking if a seatbelt is plugged in. With a seatbelt you can have a simple circuit that gets completed when you plug the metal into the socket. But how will a breathalyzer work? Can it tell that I the driver am sober when my passenger(s) are heavily intoxicated? If there isn't a tube I have to blow into, I assume it passively scans the cabin air?
I vaguely remember a push to install a part into cars that prevented you from driving if the seatbelt was not fastened. It caused a lot of problems and now we just have a warning light and a pestering beep instead.
Anyway, a blow tube that triggers an annoying beep seems like a meaningful positive step to me. It at least removes the excuse of, "I thought I was fine to drive".
I'm not saying it's a good situation, but if getting hit by a drunk driver is the number one risk you face, you have a remarkably safe existence and I'd be curious how you eliminated the risk of heart attack or suicide.
Extending half-jokingly, if we can adequately, uniformly, and proactively enforce a certain quality of driving... would that ultimately make drunk driving ok, as long as it's good enough?
Your defense: the car's passive monitoring system says your driving was fine (indistinguishable from sober driver).
Driving under the influence would still be illegal, but if you are somehow a competant drunk driver then yeah you could avoid the system triggering on you.. which seems fine? Like, it's no worse than the current system.
If you drive like an idiot and swerve or otherwise do things that are dangerous but otherwise not enumerated specifically (like blowing past a stoplight), you can be stopped and ticketed / charged / whatever.
How does this work when, say, we have a global pandemic and everyone starts slathering themselves with alcohol disinfectant as soon as they get in their cars?
This is such a bad, stupid idea.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsr1804754#:~:text=...
I doubt these deaths are all drunk driving incidents.
I wish, instead of trying to add regulation and technology to the problem, our government would look at the actual problem.
37 points, 80 comments
Whatever the mandated tech will turn out to be, it almost certainly won't be breathalyzer interlocks.
(A) can-- (i) passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired; and (ii) prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected; (B) can-- (i) passively and accurately detect whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration described in section 163(a) of title 23, United States Code; and (ii) prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit is detected; or (C) is a combination of systems described in subparagraphs
So breathalyzer interlocks would be a functional solution under the bill. It'll probably be the solution, because I don't hold out a lot of faith that your car will be able to analyze your driving in real time and lock you out without an absurd number of false positives.