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Comment by skrtskrt | Hacker News Reader

It requires the government to investigate this possibility and make an official recommendation on whether and how to implement it.

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Isn't a very similar EU regulation already well beyond the proposal stage at this point and is currently getting implemented? If that's actually the case, I don't see how it wouldn't make it to the US once the systems needed are already available. Unless the alcohol interlock system/drowsiness detection isn't a type of killswitch, though from what I understand that's pretty much what's being proposed in the US.

> Summary

All new vehicles sold from May 2022 must be fitted with advanced safety features, including:

monitors that detect when a driver has become drowsy or distracted

emergency stop signal to help prevent rear-end collisions

rear-view camera or parking sensors

alcohol interlock system to prevent drunk driving.

These systems will help reduce serious accidents on Europe’s roads.

This initiative sets out the test procedures and technical requirements for approving vehicles fitted with advanced safety features.

[Source: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-sa...]

The drowsiness detection isn't a kill switch, but the camera version of it is beyond creepy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_drowsiness_detection

Cars used to be a safe space where one could get away from being monitored and listened to by other people. This is no longer the case.

I wonder why people accept it. Does it appeal to the narcissism, i.e., people like to be monitored at all times because it makes them feel important?

Cars are a health crisis. So many people have died needlessly due to cars that it’s easy to understand Europe’s drive to make them safer.

deaths on the roads have been declining year on year. there is no crisis except fake ones driven by politicians

Sure, they have been declining overall[0]. But here in Germany, we still have 2.3M traffic accidents, 321K injuries and 2654 fatalities[1]. While I'd agree that 2.6K fatalities per year for 83M population doesn't reach the level of crisis (but 321K injuries, even if many will be minor ones, to me sound crisis-adjacent at least), still a lot of these accidents and injuries and deaths could be avoided with tech we have today.

That said, the "drowsiness" cameras in particular seem problematic, while the rear-view cameras for reversing/parking seem not problematic[2].

[0] The 2022 numbers compared to 2021 saw quite an increase, in Germany at least[1], tho. I'd guess it might have a lot to do with people "going outside" again a lot more, including fewer people still being in full-time home office and thus needing to commute again.

[1] https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Traffi...

[2] Anecdote: my mom recently narrowly avoided running into/running over a kid crawling on the street when she was reversing out of a parking spot, thanks to the rear-camera and sensors which immediately sounded alarms; she'd not have had a chance to see the kid in time without that according to her. While she was going very slow and chances are it wouldn't have been a life-threatening injury, it would have been some injury regardless with a lot more stress and trauma for everybody involved, the kid, her, the kid's parents.

Deaths on the roads have been declining because of the years of focus on safety improvements. Those numbers show that these efforts are working.

We should certainly keep an eye on the features and have productive dialogue about it. But denying safety concerns seems to be a fairly egregious twisting of the facts.

> because of the years of focus on safety improvements.

dont be too hasty to jump from correlation to causation. the numbers were declining before politicians did anything about road safety.

Please define which ranges of dates you are talking about. The first time politician worried about road safety enough to pass a law was in 1903. Are you claiming that number were declining before 1903? Or are you referring to larger scale efforts, like national road safety acts in the USA? That would be 1966 (which is the exact date the current downward trend began, FWIW). Or do you have another time range in mind for "before politicians did anything about road safety."

But road safety has only increased in terms of accidents per km driven. There's just too many cars on the road now.

I think we should push for full self driving asap though.

Taking the driver out of the equation means no longer stuffing cars wth systems intended to second-guess the driver and their abilities. No more need to check for mobile phone use because the occupants are free to do what they want. No more need for speed cameras or distance between cars. More efficiency due to people not constantly overtaking because they're in a hurry.

Right now it's becoming this insane situation where a driver is not trusted at all and second-guessed at every corner.

I don't own a car anymore and I hope I will never need one again. I don't want to drive like this, constantly being looked over my shoulder. It's not worth that hassle.

> Right now it's becoming this insane situation where a driver is not trusted at all and second-guessed at every corner.

Well a self driving car will give you no control over where you are going at all, i am not sure thats better from the point of view of liberty.

Yes but you no longer have the burden of control and responsibility. That's a huge difference.

Personally I hate driving so I'd be really happy if I could just read a book, surf the web or watch a movie while travelling. For me driving is pure wasted time.

I know some people actually enjoy driving :) But for me it feels this way.

> Yes but you no longer have the burden of control and responsibility.

Sounds like slavery with extra marketing.

>Cars used to be a safe space

I think you should specify "safe from digital tracking" because cars are everything but safe, they cause thousands of injuries and hundreds of deaths each year in my country for example. And I'm not even counting the deaths and sicknesses due to car pollution.

I profoundly dislike cars and hope for a future where car ownership will be a thing of the past and there will be only self driving cabs / buses / cargo bikes, hopefully all electric, ideally hydrogen powered.

I know, I know, I'm dreamin' =)

The european regulation discusses using cameras too! IIRC the manufacturers have a certain detection percentage threshold to achieve and they have commented that they will require stuff like visual muscle twitching detection, eye tracking, head tilt evaluation and even heartbeat sensors etc.

  I wonder why people accept it. Does it appeal to the narcissism, i.e., people like to be monitored at all times because it makes them feel important?

I think it's pretty much like boiling a frog. The trend will continue, and people will have less and less privacy. At this point the marginal benefit of privacy in a car doesn't matter to most people, as saddening as that is.

> Cars used to be a safe space where one could get away from being monitored and listened to by other people. This is no longer the case

Now it's the complete opposite. You have way better privacy on an feet or a train.

At first glance I don't see how any of these qualify as remote kill switches.

I agree that they aren't outright remote kill switches. But a tamper-proof on/off switch, that will presumably be almost impossible to trivially bypass, coupled with remote updates... It's getting close.

Especially since those systems will need to be easy to update OTA. And even if there are no malicious OTA capabilities (though the EU has already shown interest in LEO being able to remotely disable a car a few years ago) , they are using pretty subjective measures that might affect your driving experience or render your car unusable after a single update. What if the drowsiness detection does not work well on your skin color or on your heartbeat, or on your eye shape?

I guess It's just a bit creepy to me that your own car can police you autonomously with little recourse.

> government to investigate this possibility and make an official recommendation

Basically just a long phrasing to say they will do after finding a proper excuse like terrorism or sex trafficking

Think of the kids!

Always bet on kids to help pass any kind of otherwise eggregious abuse of rights

That’s incredibly dumb either way. What excuse do they have for this one?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/infrastructure-bill-track-...

"it doesn't say 'kill switch'. it says 'advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology'"

utterly deboonked

I have no issues going to any lengths preventing drunk people from driving.

and I have no problem with outright lynching the pedofiles. let us all wear bodycams and install CCTV in every home to protect the children

The next time CCTVs and bodycams are used to catch a criminal, perhaps you can volunteer to be the one telling the victims family about liberty and government over-reach.

In any case, we already have existing tech that is serving as a technological deterrent for drunk driving. The legislation doesn't explicitly say so, but I am imagining an expansion of this program. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignition_interlock_device

yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. let's start slowly, only requiring a camera in the living room. then some time later, let's seek out incidents that had occurred in bathrooms, run them in the news every week to prime the masses, then they'll ask us themselves to mandate cameras in all bathrooms as well.

all detractors will be branded as pedophiles, of course

So, a kill switch with extra marketing.

I have no issues going to any lengths preventing drunk people from driving.

Someone paid them to add it to the bill

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