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Transportation Technology

Volvo To Add In-Car Sensors To Prevent Drunk Driving (reuters.com) 145

Posted by BeauHD from the safety-first dept.
Volvo is installing cameras and sensors in its cars from the early 2020s, monitoring drivers for signs of being drunk or distracted and intervening to prevent accidents. These new safety features come a couple weeks after the automaker announced it will limit the top speed to 112mph on all its new cars from 2020 to help reduce the number of accidents. Reuters reports: Head of R&D Henrik Green said cameras will be installed on all Volvo models built on its SPA2 platform for larger cars, starting from the XC90 SUV in the early part of the next decade, before being added to smaller cars built on its CMA platform. Volvo said intervention if the driver is found to be drunk, tired or distracted by checking a mobile phone - among the biggest factors in accidents - could involve limiting the car's speed, alerting the Volvo on Call assistance service, or slowing down and parking the car.

CEO Hakan Samuelsson said that while the strategies meant Volvo might lose some customers keen on high speeds, it also opened opportunities to win parents who wanted to buy the safest car to carry their children. "It would be easy to say that people can do whatever they like but we feel we have a responsibility to do this. Maybe people will see us as 'Big Brother,' but if we save some lives then it's worth it," he told journalists. Volvo also said it would introduce Care Key on cars from 2021, allowing buyers to set speed limits, and that it was talking to insurers to offer better terms for users of these safety features.
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Volvo To Add In-Car Sensors To Prevent Drunk Driving More

Volvo To Add In-Car Sensors To Prevent Drunk Driving

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  • The More you add the more it fails (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @07:37PM (#58307574) Homepage

    They have to be extremely careful adding this stuff to vehicles, when it fails, for what ever reason, it denies access to the vehicle by the owner. The more tech you add, the greater the servicing cost and the more frequent failures will be and the worse the reputation of the vehicle. You can add all the silly crap in you want to, inflate service and repair costs but there will be consequences. There a numerous studies on the more tech you add the more frequent failures become and the more frequent and costly servicing becomes (simply more stuff to fail and more stuff to service and more stuff to repair).

    You know where this is heading cars that refuse to move unless they get their authorised $2,500 service and that means towing costs on top, owners will be impressed (oh yeah, they are counting on the hugely inflated authorised only service costs, the more automation, the locked in your become).

    • "Silly crap" seems to be working out pretty well for Tesla, and they are really just enabling drunk driving. I can get with Volvo on this one.
      • It will be a cold day in Hell before I'll buy a car that tells me what to do.

        Ain't gonna happen.
        • They already do... in a sense. I have a 19 year old car that allows me everything. My wifes car (new from winter 2017), doesn't allow you to do a lot of things. Example: I can start my cars engine whenever I want, in gear (obviously not a good idea), out of gear, etc. My wifes car? Push the button (not a key. *sigh*) and it tells you "Please engage the brake before starting the engine". Why? I'm in neutral/park, there we're standing in our perfectly even garage. Why do I need to do this? Just start

    • and the worse the reputation of the vehicle

      The Swedes are too smart to have unloaded Volvo any earlier than necessary; rest assured every last bit of value was extracted while the company still had a reputation - their quality deteriorated tremendously when they switched to FWD and they've been going downhill ever since; now the only way they can get any attention is by making ridiculous announcements.

    • There a numerous studies on the more tech you add the more frequent failures become and the more frequent and costly servicing becomes (simply more stuff to fail and more stuff to service and more stuff to repair).

      It also depends on the type of technology that is being added. If it has moving parts then it's far more likely to breakdown. This is part of the reason why EVs are cheaper to maintain, it's mostly solid state. This particular sensor could also be a highly reliable part if it's a solid state component, especially MEMS sensors. You never hear people talk about the microphone on their cellphone failing because it's an ultra-reliable MEMS sensor.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )
      Where this is heading is control. Drivers will no longer control their cars. The company (or the government, which is pretty much the same thing under the corporatist tyranny) will control the car. You'll have to satisfy their requirements, whatever they decide they might be, before the car will turn on. Then your destination will have to qualify. Going to the shooting range? Your car will decide if that's suitable for you or not.

    • And yet my current car (loaded to the gills with electronics) has a service interval 4 times longer than the first car I owned 20 years ago, and (despite being 11 years old now)it's never had an issue that needed the garage's attention in between regular services.

      • And yet my current car (loaded to the gills with electronics) has a service interval 4 times longer than the first car I owned 20 years ago, and (despite being 11 years old now)it's never had an issue that needed the garage's attention in between regular services.

        It's called Slashdot reactionary syndrome. Someone bragging about how awesome his 1970's Toyota Corrolla is -so much better than this new junk, amirite?

        I've always wondered how much trolling that might be. My very first car was a '65 Buick Skylark. I had a celebration when it hit 100K miles. It was about finished. Over time the engines were improved to the point where they are now effectively blueprinted. I love to compare my new Jeep 4 cylinder to my old Voyager. I also expect to get 300K miles on my

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Cars today are far more reliable than cars from 50 years ago, but are also vastly more complex. Modern cars have many, many more features than older ones and thus many more things to go wrong, yet are still more reliable.

      At least that's how it is in Europe, where laws mean that if a manufacturer makes an unreliable car it's going to cost them. Even out of the warranty period they usually end up paying most of the cost of expensive repairs due to quality issues or design flaws. Volvo are operating in that en

  • "Volvo to adds in-car censors to prevent drunk swearing"

  • Seems a no win here. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by speedlaw ( 878924 ) on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @07:47PM (#58307620) Homepage
    If you don't drink you won't want to pay for a needless in car breathalyzer....why would you ? If you do drink the last thing you want is your car to decide you have had 'too much', whatever that is. Can't see who, if anyone, is the audience here. While I loathe the right wing description of "virtue signaling" is that where Volvo is going ? Back when there were two swedish car companies, they used to say "one for the right lane (volvo) and one for the left lane (saab). Looks like the right lane is now a maiden aunt who reads Streetsblog and is writing letters against legal cannabis and about speeders on her block to the local legislators....
    • worried about their partying kids. And yeah, a lot of parents could give a crap if their 17 your old kid gets plastered because hey, they did to when they were that age, as long as they don't get an underage DUI.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        Yeah, I did it when I was their age, and realized just a few years later how dumb it was. When my kid got to that age, ~16-17, we talked more than once about responsible drinking. You're not going to stop them, but you can influence them to do so safely.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      Can't see who, if anyone, is the audience here.

      I see clearly who the audience is...

      1. Add "big-brother" safety enforcements like 112mph speed caps and distracted-driver preventions
      2. Observe fewer car accidents that involve Volvo vehicles. Achieve their 2020 goal of "no deaths in a new volvo"
      3. Potential customers observe the safety statistics. They observe no deaths in a Volvo. For them, it becomes a no-brainer to buy a Volvo. PROFIT.

      I agree that by no means everyone will view "zero deaths" as a positive selling point. For a lot of people they'll ignor

      • I agree that by no means everyone will view "zero deaths" as a positive selling point.

        I don't. Personally I think we don't give out enough Darwin awards as it is. Airbags are crap. I think we need giant stakes in the steering column which will stab people in the heart when the computer detects stupidity.

        Car accident? Stake!
        Cut someone off? Stake!
        Speeding? Stake!
        Driving too slow? Stake!
        Run a red light? Stake!
        Try to merge onto a highway at 50km/h? Stake!
        Honk at me because I dared to give way to a predestrian who had a green light and you're just an impatient shit like the guy behind me yesterd

    • That was my thought as well: Who is the customer for this?


      The answer appears to be government bureaucrats. Of course, as the auto manufacturers in the U.S. discovered, government bureaucrats don't buy enough cars to build your business around them.

  • This is stupid... I wonder if the car will let you drive home if a passenger is drunk? No more designated driver for you!

    But hey, look on the bright side, at least Volvo will have random pictures of you and your family in the car. I love these new "safety" spying features!

    • This is stupid... I wonder if the car will let you drive home if a passenger is drunk?

      Was wondering something similar - will it protect you from the open bottle of beer in the back seat on a hot day? Yeah, I know - "hot day" and "Sweden" don't really go together...

      Or does it focus exclusively on the driver. And if the latter, how?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )
        It's against the law to have an open bottle of bear in the back seat too, regardless of whether the driver has consumed any alcohol. The only time passengers are allowed to consume alcohol in a vehicle is if they are isolated from the driver so that they are effectively in an isolated part of the cabin from where the driver sits, such as what you may find at the back of a limo, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lordlod ( 458156 )

      I wonder if the car will let you drive home if a passenger is drunk?

      Really?

      You think that a camera system that can determine your level of intoxication won't be able to differentiate between a driver and a passenger?

      As far as grumbly whinges go, this one is really weak.

  • First they announce they want to nanny the car to 112 MPH.

    Now they announce a nanny to prevent distracted or impaired driver.

    I foresee a demise for this company within 10 years.

    I forgot where I read it decades ago, it might've been Csaba Cede in Car and Driver in the 80's... that "Volvo is the car for people scared of their own shadows." Maybe it's also the car for facists who wish to impose their will on the People, to hell with what the People want.

    This smacks of authoritarianism. I don't think it'll

    • Bonus points for the Csaba Cede reference.

    • This smacks of authoritarianism. I don't think it'll do well here in the States, and ditto for their move to govern the car to no more than 112.

      Geely^WVolvo drivers don't want to go that fast anyway, I don't think any of the people in the market for one of those cars will ever notice the limiter. Hell, I had a 115 MPH limiter on my 240SX and it was not a significant issue in normal life, even though that was a sports car. It was gear-limited to about 124 anyway.

      These drivers don't want to drive drunk, either, so as long as the car doesn't have to phone home it's not likely to reduce sales at all.

      The goal in the USA is zero highway fatalities [dot.gov] so thi

      • Hell, I had a 115 MPH limiter on my 240SX and it was not a significant issue in normal life, even though that was a sports car. It was gear-limited to about 124 anyway.

        Most of my cars have been utterly incapable to hit 140. my Rx-7 tapped out at about 130, top gear at redline ('84 GSL-SE). My miata barely kissed 125, that was drag-limited. My Rx-8 is the only missle I had, it felt nailed down at nearly 130 when I let up on the gas when I came to my senses. Some guy in Germany posted a pic in winter in the autobahn, 152 at near-redline in top gear.

        How to put this.. I'm not interested in top speed, I"m interested in "does this car make me giggle like a madman when I fli

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cederic ( 9623 )

          by 130 things get weird

          Nah. Your brain also very rapidly adjusts and treats it as normal.

          Just start reacting to things happening half a mile ahead instead of waiting until you reach them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      First they announce they want to nanny the car to 112 MPH.

      Obligatory racist comment:
      What did you expect from a Chinese company when you can blindfold their drivers with dental floss?

      Maybe that's why my Asian wife is my Ex...told her that when I was teaching her to drive. And no, I'll never buy a Volvo with this kind of BS.

  • And of course, once technology is available, your friendly local government will make it mandatory for all vehicles. There is no escape.

  • I like to think my boys are pretty responsible but there is no way I would give them a car that could do 180km/h. I remember the stupid stuff I did as a teenager. I'm always amazed that so many boys actually make it to 20. So here is a better way to think of this, if Volvo proves this works, what percentage reduction of traffic fatalities and injuries would justify making it mandatory in your country? Sweden at 4.7 deaths per 100,000 people per year seems god awful if you think about living to 100 but t

    • $6.4 Million per life in Sweden. Might not be worth it. In the USA though it would be $2.3 Million per life saved. It might be worth it there.

      What sort of stone-cold calculus does it take to reach the conclusion that saving the life of an arbitrary human might be worth $2.3 million but not $6.4?

  • Crash not accident (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Whatsisname ( 891214 ) on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @08:45PM (#58307804) Homepage

    Volvo's technology is designed to reduce crashes. Not accidents.

    An accident is "an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause."

    If someone is driving drunk, or driving distracted, and they crash, it's no accident. By defaulting to the term "accident", we are implicitly absolving drivers of heavy machines of their responsibility to operate them safely and competently.

    https://www.crashnotaccident.c... [crashnotaccident.com]

    • If someone is driving drunk, or driving distracted, and they crash, it's no accident.

      That's a stupid thing to say. If you don't mean to crash, it's an accident.

      By defaulting to the term "accident", we are implicitly absolving drivers of heavy machines of their responsibility to operate them safely and competently.

      No, we absolutely are not. We are only differentiating between intentional and unintentional collisions. The driver is still assigned fault based on a number of factors, substance abuse being one of them, and we still have special treatment for people who got into a collision as a result of substance abuse. We do however treat people who intentionally get into collisions differently from people who do it unintentionally, because that

    • Don't mess with english language to try and get your way. Use the linguistic tools as they apply.

      A drunk driver killing someone is still an accident unless he was intentionally trying to murder said person. The answer here is not to claim he's being absolved through the use of the word "accident", the answer is to impart specific blame by pointing out his "negligence" caused the accident.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        A drunk driver killing someone is still an accident unless he was intentionally trying to murder said person.

        Not exactly.... more like the death of the person is more of an unintended consequence of something that they *did* deliberately choose to do, which was to get drunk enough that they couldn't safely control the vehicle.

        But how can one justly say that something that they never directly intended to happen, but which was both made more likely to happen and even predictable to happen, is only an "accid

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by subk ( 551165 )
      That's why lawyers say "there are no accidents, only incidents".
  • So what happens if the owner is injured and has no other way to get medical treatment other than to drive to a medical facility? If the car recognizes that the driver is not paying attention due to being in excruciating pain and pulls over and won't move, that's not good. Or if the driver is transporting an injured family member? I'm sure checking on the family member while driving could be seen as distracted too. There are so many ways this could go wrong.

  • Just imagine the possibilities:

    • Limiting all cars to 20MPH is worth it.
    • Filling in all swimming pools with concrete is worth it.
    • Confiscating anything sharper than a butterknife is worth it.
    • Confiscating all guns... oh, right.
  • Why stop only at refusing to drive when I look tired or distracted late night or early in the morning? We need cars to make other safety related decisions. For example, refuse to change lanes if the driver did not use turn signal, brake and stop the car when driver tries to cross intersection on yellow light, refuse to accellerate beyond speed limit, don't brake if the driver did not check rear view mirror, brake on every stoo sign, etc.

  • >"CEO Hakan Samuelsson said that while the strategies meant Volvo might lose some customers keen on high speeds,"

    And lose customers who value freedom, value privacy, value control, value repairability, value not being harassed or labeled, value glitches not causing new safety and convenience issues, and value their wallets.

  • ..will be available from 3rd party companies almost immediately.

  • My buddy has a device that plugs into the OBD II port. It comes an app that allows him to make a huge number of performance adjustments to his car.

    How long will it take before somebody offers a specific app to disable all Volvo's Big Brotherish performance tweaks for as long as the device is plugged in, then reset everything to the way it was as part of the removal process? I'm betting it will be available about a week after the first "Neutered Volvo" sale for about a hundred Euros.

    If I were writing it,

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