Your next car may refuse to start if it thinks you've had a drink
reason.com
reason.com
I also hate stuff like this because "Computers don't argue": https://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133 Computer says you're drunk so tough shit, you cant drive to work. Try again tomorrow.
Edit: people downvoting are supporting an increase police state. We shouldnt make people prove their not committing a crime to do normal stuff. This is like stop and frisk but automotive.
"Im afraid i cant do that.."
"Why not hal?"
"Your colone is to rich in ethanol. And so is the window-cleaning fluid and the stuff they spilled over your shirt."
"But im not drunk. Let me proof it."
I'm against requiring something like this universally, but drunk driving is such a big problem because intoxicated people feel overconfident in their driving abilities. That's definitely a case where the machine would know better than you.
The trouble comes when the car won't let me override the controls.
My tire preasure warning has been going on for little under a week now, but there is no reason for it, so I will reset it soonish. I do appreciate my car warning me though - it took only a few minutes to check.
The tire pressure warning light came on when I drove it a week ago. I checked the tires, only 1 was 2 PSI low. I filled it up in my garage and then drove it to run some errands, thinking that it would detect the correct pressure and reset the warning light. Nope.
I check the manual and there is some tire pressure monitoring system in play that requires an arcane sequence of button presses on the touchscreen display to start the reset process and then the car is required to be driven around for up to an hour between 55 and 60 miles per hour.
I can't believe that people accept this sort of shit. Who has time for this sort of shit? I know that these sorts of systems aren't new but this is much worse than the last time I encountered one of these "drive at X speed for Y minutes/miles" systems. And this isn't preventing operation of the vehicle, it's just annoying.
[0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think...
https://www.thedrive.com/news/43086/new-cars-will-have-to-de...
"The text later on in this section of the bill alludes to this possibility, stating that if 10 years have passed and this mandate hasn't been implemented, the Secretary of Transportation is gonna have to explain why and provide some possible steps forward."
Government: oh god, if we don't implement this thing in 10 years, then maybe this other branch of the government is going to maybe explain why and provide steps we can maybe take.
It's 2021, further from the deadline than the deadline itself was from the signing of the legislation, and the only major movement in this regard is that a few more systems have joined EZPass (North Carolina, Florida, and Minnesota), and that North Carolina, Georgia and Florida created their own interoperability set.
One of Dahmer's victims got away and was so drugged that the cops returned him to Dahmer who proceeded to eat him.
"Why didn't the victim just drive away?"
"I found trace remnants of Jack Daniels on her clothing, the killer must've asked her to roll down the window, splashed it inside the car..."
"If you had gotten here sooner we wouldn't have to amputate your <insert extremity here>"
"yeah well nobody on scene could start their car and EMS took 30min to arrive".
I personally wouldn't mind if everyone's car could detect drunk drivers.
I don’t drink and I’m against this. I don’t think it’s something I should have to pay for. Punish drunk drivers with life in jail and they’ll stop. As it is, the punishments for a DUI are too low - that and many people in the US drink and drive because they are low-key suicidal and completely fine if they die while driving drunk. Very common way for men in the military to die - happens every holiday.
I seem to remember someone telling me that if you get caught driving while impaired a second time then you lose your license for the rest of your life.
There is no pass if your work depends on your ability to drive, no pass if it is a hardship in your life. No pass. Period.
Auto companies who want to make it not suck for their customer will do far better.
How we deal with known offenders is another discussion, but adding these kinds of preemptive limitations to our hardware is unwanted overreach, that sets a bad precedent. Something about a slippery slope.
But, detecting etanol levels in blood is a fairly well established set of processes that rely on well understood electrochemical reactions.
I don't see too much risk of arbitrary unfair decisions from a dumb interlocking device.
I don't see any way around it. Once you have the tech to prevent an automobile from exceeding the speed limit in a school zone it's obscene to manufacture cars that respond only to the input of the driver's foot on the accelerator, with no other considerations. At some point, "I have decided to drive 130 mph down a residential street, because that's what I've decided to do in this exact moment and I have a right to be in control of my own car" just isn't good enough. You have all these other inputs and, what, you're just going to ignore them?
Cars are not freedom on four wheels, it's simply one method, among many, for you go to work and buy groceries.
It's absurd.
Why would you manufacture a means of conveyance that behaves that way? You certainly wouldn't ever allow one on a public street, not when you have all the tech I described above. That's a bad product. I mean, it might describe an ATV or something -- a vehicle you use for fun off of public thoroughfares. But it's not a serious vehicle that meets the standards for operating on public rights of way.
We already regulate practically every aspect of driving. You're just used to those things, so they seem invisible.
I believe there was a car in the 80's that would not start the ignition if the driver's seatbelt wasn't on. One day a women was trying to flee from an attempted rapist and was too panicked to buckle in... and well he got to her, and she sued.
The tradeoffs between general benefits and particular harms have lots of nuance and really plug into deep personal values.
That "freedom" comes at the cost of people's homes that made way for highways, fortunes spent on a car that became necessary to hold a job, and lives because "oh it was just an _accident_". It seems more like slavery to me.
This is totally off topic, but I recently came across a bunch of information about my family tree that totally changed my perception of this. By the time you get back this far you're talking about literally tens of thousands of living ancestors. I had always heard my family came here at the end of the 19th century, but it turns out some of them were already here in the 17th, because, again, this far back you're talking maybe 20,000 people. It's not the, like, 8-10 ancestors whose names you know from 1900.
All it takes is for one of those thousands to have set up here and at some point for one of their descendants to have procreated with somebody in your ancestral line, who maybe came here much later for it to be true that your ancestry here technically goes back to whenever they first got here.
Exponential growth surprises, yet again.
Something similar is eventually going to happen with a bunch of this other stuff.
Congress mandates anti-drunk driving technology for cars - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198086 - Nov 2021 (7 comments)
US infrastructure bill includes law that aims to end drunk driving - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29198055 - Nov 2021 (43 comments)
Drunken-Driving Warning Systems Would Be Required for New Cars Under U.S. Bill - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29188260 - Nov 2021 (96 comments)
Congress' new mandate to carmakers: Figure out a way to stop drunk driving - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29183613 - Nov 2021 (86 comments)
Drunken-Driving Warning Systems Would Be Required for New Cars Under U.S. Bill - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29183374 - Nov 2021 (4 comments)
Congress mandates new car technology to stop drunken driving - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29178229 - Nov 2021 (2 comments)
Congress mandates new car technology to stop drunken driving - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29169239 - Nov 2021 (1 comment)
If we had guts, we would ban bars from selling anyone more than three drinks, and ban bars from serving anyone who has had a drink anywhere else that day. (or something, I'm brainstorming).
Also how would you prevent other bars from selling to people without a centralized database.
Holding bars accountable.
TABC (Texas bar regulator) tells all bartenders TODAY that you cannot serve someone to excess (above 0.08% BAC) and cannot serve someone who is already drunk. I guarantee you that every single bartender in Texas has violated this regulation.
When the regulations step in with reality, and are enforced, maybe fewer people would be overserved.
Can the mechanism break? Of course. But so can your wireless key. So can any one of dozens of computers or sensors required to run your engine. Nothing new here.
The nanny state argument was old when people were protesting seat belts.
The backup key is for opening the door.
I think the proper way to encourage seat belt use would have been to allow insurance companies to not cover injuries to insured motorists who were found to not be wearing seat belts at the time of the accident.
Accepting a philosophy of withholding medical care in cases like that would lead to a society of cripples and dead. I don't see how that's desirable or an improvement.
Denying health insurance would just ensure medical bankruptcy and financial woes for anyone who was believed to have been seatbeltless, regardless of proof, since this isn't a court of law, but a "private company" decision.
Ultimately that just means we as a society pay for it, since they're still going to get emergency treatment but won't be able to pay the bill.
IMO any of these approaches are unlikely to do much, because most people don't consider the potential consequences when they're assuming something won't happen to begin with. Or IE. If people aren't wearing seat belts, they're already assuming they won't get in a crash, so the potential financial consequences don't matter. If they were actually considering such things they would probably be wearing their seat belt, since the potential risk of death or being maimed is always there regardless of your insurance policy ;)
Also FWIW I'm pretty sure the police cannot pull you over for not wearing your seat belt, they have to be pulling you over for some other reason (Not saying it's not still a problem, but there's some nuance there).
You’re thirsty, so you pick up your favorite—-a nice can of Coke. Suddenly a chime from the dash and the engine power drops. ‘DRUNK DRIVING DETECTED” flashes as the car pulls itself over to the side of the road and cuts the engine. A swirl of snow passes over the hood. You push the start button again, but now “INTOXICATED DRIVER DETECTED. WAIT 8 HOURS BEFORE STARTING” appears on the screen. The chill from outside rapidly permeates the cabin as “NO SERVICE” glares ominously from your phone. It’s only another 9 miles to town… maybe you can make it…
Alcohol detection from your breath isn't some new, untested thing, it's been around for over half a century. And it's going to mistake a coke for a beer. Or rather, it's as likely to make that mistake as your exhaust sensor is to break, rendering your car equally "dead".
You're free to buy as much alcohol as you want, and have a drink whenever you want.
Unless you endanger and hurt other people.
For this bill you can thank the many assholes who abuse that freedom. As always.