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Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

> assuming the data is analysed inside the car itself?

The law appears to be worded with no such stipulation. Which means it's up to the manufacturer how and where they process the data. The odds of the data being processed locally to the car are long.

Which does give rise to some questions:

if the car can't get a data connection, and therefore can't get the data analysed, will it assume the driver is incapacitated and refuse to start? If not, circumvention is simple.

If the manufacturer's servers have an issue, will the car refuse to start?

Will the data be the property of the driver, not the manufacturer? (hahaha, I'm kidding, of course the data will belong to the manufacturer, ready to be sold to anyone who wants it)

edit: clarified first question

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But do all cars need and have to process any fucking data locally. I don't want that shit. I wanna drive a car not a computer

Having said that, there are arguments to be made for a standard that uses heuristics to detect impaired driving for sure. Its harder to make the case if theres like a homomorphic data situation going on where your car can 1) use data and processi locally to detect potential impaired driving, 2) it stipulates loss of function in terms of abillity to further drive (pulls you over) in exchange for eliminating the potentialitt for crime, damage, and criminal chsrging process.

Its a goddamn loss of time, energy, and life to still have this problem. A car should not need to necessarily measure your BAC as evinced by breath to detect you're driving like a maniac and maybe it should pull over, lock, and contact assistance to the extent the law allows for you to be pulled aside and deal with a simple ticket/instant fine, no need for due process (instant feedback + administrative approach to offences).

The criminal aspect is bullshit because yes its a fucked up thing but people who are impaired are not thinking clearly or able to consent to committing a criminal act in th same way they can't consent to something as simple and hands-off (no pun intended) as being sexually fucked and still be considered to have had the agency to have been lawfully able to consent to that in the first place.

It really makes zero sense: 1) simple thing: receiving sexual intercourse 2) complex thing: driving car

You can do both these things drunk but your only assumed to have lacked agency in #1. Makes no sense to me, you're almost guranteed to fuck (up) your car [car non-consensually] if not yourself as the end result lol

EDIT: i'd appreciate if any lawyer or legal person or someone you know could critique this rationale and discuss how/why it is or isnt cogent and elaborate on the extent to which it could even be theoretically implemented, even [GASP?!] if it costs us all a lil bit of money/taxes/legislation to get us to that point in legal dtae of affairs

Love the analogy ;)

But yes, if your condom could detect if your partner had an elevated blood/alcohol level and requested them to confirm that they consented to the sexual act, would it be the same? And would it be useful, or would it just elevate the stats of condom-less rape?

In the same vein; if you could rip out the processor of your car because it refused to drive because it thought you were drunk, would it increase safety or reduce it?

But to me, thats the real criminal offense. Who would do that drunk if it was basically impossible in the sense it is part ofthe car in a non-central way where there's like bot one discrete part you can remove to dismantle it?

If you were sober and took the time to criminally alter your car in the same way (but criminal) you cant have totalky tinted windowsand must have catalytic converter, i think basically everyone can agree you're prolly a piece of shit who needs judicial intervention

I can pretty easily imagine a scenario where this (ripping the processor out of the car) would be the right thing to do... let's say me and a bunch of friend get drunk in the middle of nowhere, one of us is injured and is going to bleed out, so the choice is to drive drunk to the hospital or let my friend bleed out. I'm going to drive drunk, and if that involves ripping out the processor that won't let me start the car because I'm drunk, I'm doing that.

I get where you're coming from, but I think the blanket application of fixed rules with no consideration of context is pretty much always wrong.

I guess you could have a centralized removeable unit that costs a fuck ton to replace and jacks your insurance rate up once it auto-alerts them when you've removed it. If you can prove exigent circumstances than its replaced for a smaller cost or free and your rates are ok but I don't see what insurance company is ever gonna be sitting pretty knowing you now have a history of removing the anti-drunk-driving enforcement mechanism and that you must have logically been dabbling or moonlighting in drunk driving :/

Rapextfully thats a ridiculous contrived example that internally doesnt even make sense. Alm that time spent on reverse engineering while you're drunk can be spent accepting your current reality and calling an expensed taxi ride home. Society will gladly pick up the tab now for a $20 ride to save itself $20,000 in legal costs just on its own side not to mention if you appeal and all the other stuff

Disregard please, see next to it

It shouldn't be [allowed to be] "one" part or central processing chip rhat you can simply rip out. It should be like a nervos system or whatever and not be tamperable in such a banal and non-Rube/idiot-proof fashion. We def have the technology, lol, we just need to spend a bit more time/money/patience to rwalky drive the message home

In case (1) you are the victim. The rapist bears responsibility for what they did to you knowing your mental state.

In case (2) you are the offender. In your sober state, you're expected to know your limits. While sober, you had a chance not to take the action (i.e. taking the first drink) that eventually resulted in you losing your faculties and hurting innocent people, yet you did anyway. That makes you responsible.

Can I ask how you feel about the larger proposition/regime I'm suggesting? Do you feel criminal trials are the best forum to dea with impaired drivingor or should we maybe update the social contract and traffic policy/car manufacturing etc so we can move on to more practical interventions that stop it before it "happens" (please don't nitpick about "well u already are guilty cuz u started the car", like just answer rhe darn question with as much good faith as it was asked ny me which is completely in)

Sorry but I disagree.

> maybe it should pull over, lock, and contact assistance to the extent the law allows for you to be pulled aside and deal with a simple ticket/instant fine, no need for due process (instant feedback + administrative approach to offences).

My own property should hold me hostage on the side of some random street if a pothole causes a false positive for drunk driving in some inscrutable algorithm? Not in a million years. Don't punish me for other people's failings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy#Example_2:_D...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJYaXy5mmA8

There's already a social/legal contract in terms of seat belts that a certain demographic already bitches endlessly about. You'll be in good, voluminous (if scumbaggy) company :(

Sorry, with all due respect, i could not care less about your convenience. If you can't already appreciate the convenience over that whicb came before and you're really that selfish fundamentally, I'm not going to spend more time sitting with you trying to teach you to do what Jesus would do (if you're religious or just being a good world neighbour in general, its pointless anyway. At the end of the day, theres a disconnect between people who do what fails and doesn't work (using the criminal justice system where its just not an effective tool) and want to punish their way out of everything, or there's people like Einstein who suggest when something isnt working its insane to continue thusly, and to find a new approach. Not my finest example but you get the point. I'm washingmy hands of this lol

Its not always about just your convenience respectfully and obviously the tech has to be refined to reduce that absolutely, its def some bullshit but we need to find a lateral solution to this stupid persisten issue and punishing often sick people protestant style clearly isnt working, sorry

Sorry again, I know how much everyone likes to be dismissive of a rational and balanced discussion and use `sorry` as a glib silver bullet to escape scrutiny and resonance but here we find ourselves. I care about you in any case but this selfish and lack of collegiality or desire to problem-solve is a cancer and I will pull every stop to quarantine and stifle it :(

Nothing personal, its just my selfish conceit that I have to prioritize above your feelings in turn. At least we can speak the same language temporarily :/

Please read my first link again.

> Many would answer as high as 95%, but the correct probability is about 2%.

Your system would be orders of magnitude less effective than you are imagining. It's a common enough mistake that it has its own example on that wikipedia page.

You really want to mandate a system where something like 98% of the calls to police would be false positives? Who will pay for all these extra officers who do nothing but drive around the city freeing innocent, sober people from their cars all day?

The seat belt situation is fine, because:

1. Your car doesn't refuse to drive if you don't wear one (such as on private property where it's legal to drive, drunk, with no seatbelt, if you choose)

2. Your car won't hold you hostage for hours if some AI algorithm makes a mistake. The seatbeat detector is 100% accurate under normal conditions and if it fails, the worst thing that can happen is your car will beep at you.

> seat belt

Still sounds like an inconvenience cuz maybe they don't wanna and thats the extent of their articulable issues with it but it still constitutes a violation of "muh freedom/convenience", no?

If they could get the inconvenience/false positive rate to 0%, would you still have philosophical issues with it to the extent you wouldn't accept it or would uou? I hope thats true but what I worry about is that its efficacy is not the actual issue (like in sales where people put forth unknowingly false objections)

> police

Why do police have to be involved? Are there no other means or approaches to civil enforcement? Who said anything about police?

Sorry, I hope I'm not being a total dick cuz I feel like we're listening to each other now but I'm just exhausted currently and the previous response kinda rubbed me the wrong way :(

Didn't mean to rub you the wrong way, the conversation is interesting.

> it still constitutes a violation of "muh freedom/convenience", no?

Yes, but "muh freedom" doesn't apply when you're on public roads with other people. My problem isn't with the law, but with co-opting a device that I paid for to work against my own interests.

Would you be okay with a similar system for seatbelt laws, where if you or your passenger or your child takes off the seatbelt while in motion, your car pulls over to the side of the road and holds you hostage for hours while you wait for someone to come write you a ticket?

> If they could get the inconvenience/false positive rate to 0%...

Simply isn't possible. And even if it was, there are edge cases where it should be allowed, such as:

- wife needs medical attention, and you've had a glass of wine

- wildfires, which can spread surprisingly quickly

- I want to drive on my own property where DUI laws don't apply

Don't kill my wife or make me burn alive in a wildfire because of other random people's mistakes.

> Who said anything about police?

You suggested someone comes and writes you a ticket before freeing you from your car. Who else writes tickets other than cops?

I commented down below on an exigent circumstance model further below. Just click on my handle and it will link you to all I've offered on various facets of the larger topic. We can always iterate but its important to make an effort to start deviating from the status quo towards a more optimal state of things. One of them was a bit "not great" but its sibling comment should be prescient for your purposes. Thanks

> who else writes tix than cops?

Haven't you ever passed one of those speed-testing automated tracker thing that issues people speed tix in the mail automatically?

[]

But how is your sense of agency denied in one sense (1) and affirmed in the other (2), particularly in the impaired driving example where your BAC is way higher and you're more conparittively far more "sloshed", likely completely fucking (sorry) blacked out?

All of the logic of (2) does not magically not apply to (1) even if the legal standard doesn't recognize that btw. Like legally speaking you are correct, I'm just pointing out it makes no sense if you actually think about it

And I'm sure all the analogue-no heuristics/moralistic crusade crowd will feel the same way once they realize they blocked the suggestion that could have prevented their dead loved one (regardless of perp/victim status).

I might be mixing up the points here and implementationetc but its asinine we dont just find a way that is the last invasive to prevent instead of waiting for destruction and the PUNISHING the CULPABLE OFFENDER.

Why should the law and traffic policy be so reactive as opposed to enlightened and as privacy respecting as possible proactive in nipping the issue in bud.

To say nothing of all the criminal cases that are fundentalh the stand in for treatment that as a society we both shame people in seeking before the fact and refuse to offer same and also after the fact when its wayyyy too fucking late (sorry for swearing but its passion) and that there exists enough technically-based or mental health related defenses to so as to render the process in my view a giant joke and waste of time

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