Sensor Measures In Fingertips If Driver Is Drunk 549
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Economic Times reports on the first working prototypes of a new technology that would measure blood alcohol content in a driver's fingertips, using sophisticated touch-based sensors situated in steering wheels and door locks and engineers say that unlike court-ordered breath-analyzer ignition locks, which require a driver to blow into a tube and wait a few seconds for the result, their systems will analyze a driver's blood-alcohol content in less than one second. Anti-drunken driving crusaders believe that almost 9,000 road traffic deaths could be prevented every year if alcohol detection devices were used in all vehicles to prevent alcohol-impaired drivers from driving their vehicles. 'We believe this might turn the car into the cure for the elimination of drunk driving,' says Laura Dean-Mooney, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But not everyone is enamored of the device which could be available to automakers in eight to 10 years. 'For ordinary, law-abiding citizens, it's an invasion of their privacy,' says Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party."
Its Winter. (Score:5, Insightful)
My fingers get cold. I drive with gloves, at least till the car warms up.
I imagine drunk drivers would do the same.
Let's just ban Alcohol like we did with Marijuana (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem solved. The marijuana/cocaine/etc ban makes it illegal to imbibe these substances. So let's just do the same with alcohol, and all our problems will disappear. No more drunks == no more drunk driving.
Note:
I'm being sarcastic.
Privacy? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Let's just ban Alcohol like we did with Marijua (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem solved. The marijuana/cocaine/etc ban makes it illegal to imbibe these substances. So let's just do the same with alcohol, and all our problems will disappear. No more drunks == no more drunk driving.
Note:
I'm being sarcastic.
I certainly hope so. People should be able to put anything they want into their bodies, upto and including cyanide. Else they are not truly free.
Deal with the abuse of the drugs (DUI) not the banning of them, or alcohol.
DUI Hysteria (Score:5, Insightful)
But folks, let's have some perspective with the hysteria: 9000 death a year are in fact one of the smaller numbers in the world of preventable deaths.
The hysteria far outweighs the threat, much like TSA and air travel.
Invasion of privacy?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me stupid but how is this an invasion of privacy, it's not like information regarding your drunkenness is being passed over to the authorities.
Mark Hinkle, chairman of the Libertarian National Committee, fears the devices could evolve like seat belts — introduced as voluntary safety features that become lawfully enforced.
Oh yes those evil seat belts made mandatory because they save peoples lives, damn evil big government regulating car safety . Has it come to the point where there has to be a knee-jerk reaction to everything just for the sake of it?
Wrong way to think about it (Score:5, Insightful)
If the court can order you to pay for an ignition interlock after a DUI, then it can sure as hell order you to sell your car, period.
Re:Privacy? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the data is collected then someone will find a way to abuse it.
Think about your insurance company or employer. If they could go back and pull your auto's history of your intoxication logs. They would find a way to use this to their advantage.
The collection and retention is data is generally to the disadvantage of the little guy...
Actually punish drunk drivers (Score:2, Insightful)
Can we try that first?
Everybody pays for the stupidity of the few (Score:5, Insightful)
Stuff happens, people die. One of my best friends in high school was killed when his car was hit by a drunk. To me, I'd rather the drunk lost his license rather than my car fitted with an interlock. I don't even drink, why should I have to pay for someone else's irresponsibility?
Measures like this are a waste of everyone's resources that distract from more serious problems - broken education, declining scientific investment, an uncompetitive economy, etc.
Re:Let's just ban Alcohol like we did with Marijua (Score:4, Insightful)
Endangering one's self is freedom. Endangering other's life abuses other's freedom.
Re:Invasion of privacy?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh yes those evil seat belts made mandatory because they save peoples lives, damn evil big government regulating car safety . Has it come to the point where there has to be a knee-jerk reaction to everything just for the sake of it?
People get bitter when laws start going down the slippery slope.
In 32 States, driving without a seat belt is a primary offense.
In how many of those States do you think people were told upfront that the law would eventually become a primary offense?
Re:Its Winter. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wear glove, then you don't get to drive your car. Its not like they really give a damn if you are cold or not. They want to invade your privacy and control your daily life, at all costs.
Re:Invasion of privacy?? (Score:2, Insightful)
The decision to use seatbelts is taken out of your hands because much of the time, when people are injured in car accidents, my taxpayer money goes towards your ambulance, police, and hospital care. Particlarly if you have no insurance. If you have insurance in the US, it's quite often Medicaid or Medicare, so my taxpayer money is going towards it anyway.
Re:DUI Hysteria (Score:4, Insightful)
But those 9000 deaths a year are distributed across the entire demographic of people. The common cold might kill more people each year but if those people were all over 90, it really is not as bad. As it stands, automobile accidents are the number 1 cause of death for people in their 20s. Not all of these deaths are alcohol related, but many are. I have personally known people who have died in the following ways:
1 - avoiding an animal (or so we assume)
2 - due to being intoxicated
1 - hit by a train - alcohol a likely factor
2 - oncoming incapacitated driver - likely fell asleep at the wheel
So of the 5 fatal accidents, 3 have been related to alcohol, 1 related to incapacitated driver, 1 unavoidable accident.
I do not think that sensors present in steering wheels will work, but trying to find ways to curb those 9000 deaths/year is a good idea. Comparing this to the hysteria of air travel / TSA is ridiculous - we are talking about two very different scales.
This is amount government contracts. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't let them bullshit you for one second that the value of lives is at all relevant to them, here. The motivating factor is the value of the government contracts that will be handed out should this idea succeed. The same kind of contracts that benefit certain industries if we fall for the idea that we should stick everyone under house arrest and fit them with an electronic bracelet for even the slightest crime (and, of course, people will think that's a tremendous idea if the alternative is jail time).
The result is an enormous revenue stream. Every single person in this country convicted of some sort of a violation (in this case, we'll just stick to alcohol related) fitted with an expensive device for an additional expensive installation fee. Then their car, fitted with an expensive device and another expensive installation fee. Then expensive monthly subscriptions (paid out of the individual's pocket) for monitoring and maintenance. If you don't have the money or you find it an abhorrent solution, then you can always opt not to participate and not pay all of that money. Of course, then we're going to lock you up in prison for a year. So it's not like we're not giving you freedom of choice!
If they REALLY gave a fuck about preventing lives, the solution wouldn't involve ridiculously complex and expensive monitoring and fittings and equipment farmed out to private industry. The solution would be that if you are convicted of driving drunk, your license would be revoked for the rest of your life and if you still put society in danger by driving without a license, then we stick you in prison.
Re:Wrong way to think about it (Score:2, Insightful)
And let's face it - most places in the USA you NEED a car to get to work at the very least
you should have thought of that before driving while drunk
Re:Its Winter. (Score:4, Insightful)
The vast majority of people don't drive drunk. You don't punish the entire population for the action of a few. I live in the Northeast. It was -5F (-15 C) the other day. I wore my fucking gloves at all times. I never drive with any alcohol in my system, period. I picked where I live for the fact that I can walk wherever I need to go, except for work. If I want to go drink myself into oblivion, it is a short walk away to get the job done. No car is needed. It is stupid, wasteful, annoying, and flatly unfair that I have to shoulder the cost of this stupid system, suffer my car being incapacitated if it fails, and have to take my damned gloves off every fucking morning in the sub-zero cold to prove to my car that no, I didn't wake up and do a few shots before work.
If you want to install these things on first time drunk driver offenders, I am all for it. Installing these stupid things on the car of every single citizen on the other hand is wasteful, insulting, and frankly, fucking stupid. Save the money you were going to waste on this asinine system on something that might actually be helpful. A sleep detection system that you can fucking turn off if it is malfunctioning or not working for you would be wonderful. Better yet, just take all of the money you were about to piss away and use it to improve health care, or make better roads, give the damned money back, or do something that benefits all citizens, not punishes the vast majority because of the actions of a few.
Re:Its Winter. (Score:4, Insightful)
Give it up hell. If I'm not a convicted drunk driver they have ZERO business testing me every time i get in my car. It IS an invasion of my rights, regardless of any 'tracking' that may or may not occur.
As a private citizen that has not been convicted nor under court ordered investigation, i refuse to have my rights invaded.
Re:DUI Hysteria (Score:3, Insightful)
and Liberals think everyone that disagrees with them to be racist Nazis.
At least the Tea Party guys don't want to take 3/4 of my paycheck and give it to some mouthbreather.
Re:Its Winter. (Score:2, Insightful)