Automakers Want Cars That Won't Start If You're Drunk (washingtonpost.com) 325
Since 2008, a $65 million program has been designing a sophisticated new "ignition interlock" system that would only allows cars to start if it detects that the driver is sober, the Washington Post reports:
What's different -- perhaps even revolutionary -- is that the built-in ignition interlock would make an instantaneous and precise reading of every driver's blood alcohol content (BAC) level when the driver attempts to start the vehicle. Eventually, the device could become standard equipment, just like air bags. The device would take BAC samples in one of two ways. A breath-based system would gather a whiff of a driver's ambient breath. A touch-based system would analyze the touch of a driver's finger, perhaps from a vehicle's starter button or the steering wheel....
Officials behind the public-private effort to develop the technology -- known as the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) -- say the device will be ready for commercial fleets next year. Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles became the first state agency to use it in its fleet last year, and a private company, James River Transportation, is road-testing them in its fleet of Ford Flex crossovers.... . Advocates say that if their work is successful, such a device -- which requires understanding complexities involving the science of biology, spectroscopy, electrical engineering, consumer behavior and even politics -- could save an estimated 10,000 lives a year.
"We intend to release by the end of 2020 a breath-based device for use in fleet applications and as a dealer-installed accessory," says the president of Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, which represents 17 automakers.
He tells the Post that the interlock devices now available are zero-tolerance -- "if any amount of alcohol is present, they will lock you out" -- and "are very difficult to use... Even people who use them regularly and are experienced in using them typically fail to provide a sufficient breath sample about 30 percent of the time... The other problem with those mouthpieces [besides some drivers seeing them as uncomfortable or intrusive] is they're plastic and you can only use them about five times... And then, the technology has to be recalibrated roughly every year, dependent upon usage. If you use it more, you have to calibrate it more frequently."
But with the new devices, "you simply sit in driver's seat and breathe normally. That's all that's required. There is no mouthpiece... We want to make a very precise very accurate measurement within a third of a second."
Officials behind the public-private effort to develop the technology -- known as the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) -- say the device will be ready for commercial fleets next year. Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles became the first state agency to use it in its fleet last year, and a private company, James River Transportation, is road-testing them in its fleet of Ford Flex crossovers.... . Advocates say that if their work is successful, such a device -- which requires understanding complexities involving the science of biology, spectroscopy, electrical engineering, consumer behavior and even politics -- could save an estimated 10,000 lives a year.
"We intend to release by the end of 2020 a breath-based device for use in fleet applications and as a dealer-installed accessory," says the president of Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, which represents 17 automakers.
He tells the Post that the interlock devices now available are zero-tolerance -- "if any amount of alcohol is present, they will lock you out" -- and "are very difficult to use... Even people who use them regularly and are experienced in using them typically fail to provide a sufficient breath sample about 30 percent of the time... The other problem with those mouthpieces [besides some drivers seeing them as uncomfortable or intrusive] is they're plastic and you can only use them about five times... And then, the technology has to be recalibrated roughly every year, dependent upon usage. If you use it more, you have to calibrate it more frequently."
But with the new devices, "you simply sit in driver's seat and breathe normally. That's all that's required. There is no mouthpiece... We want to make a very precise very accurate measurement within a third of a second."
And thats not all... (Score:5, Insightful)
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All that aside, how does calling a slippery slope argument "pathetic" make it invalid?
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How so? There are laws against drunk driving. This is just a few steps above a speed limiter, whose job it also is to enforce road rules.
I'm not aware of any jurisdiction which has a law against Driving While Nazi.
Re: And thats not all... (Score:5, Insightful)
> How so? There are laws against drunk driving.
There's laws against absolutely everything. I'm sure you committed violation of the law today, and likely a crime this month. You know what else is illegal? Speeding. Enforcement is tough, however- with basically everyone speeding at least once a day, the laws and penalties are written very harshly on the assumptions that (1) a cop won't waste his time with someone who is not a risk very often and (2) most speeders escape penalties the vast majority of the time, so when they DO get caught, there needs to be a substantial penalty.
There may one day be sharp speed limiters on all cars that force the cars to obey the speed limit, as referenced on GPS, maps, something. In such a case, you can expect speed limits to go up to represent actually safe speeds. There may also, much more profitably, be a mandate for all cars to simply alert the driver and the police whenever a speed limit is broken, resulting in a ticket arriving in the mail in a few days. In that world, you could expect the speed limits to stay the same (or even be lowered), but you'd expect the fines to go down for most types of speeding- it would then be driven by how much money the local law enforcement is hoping to collect.
So while you may be able to drive today legally as some type of wrongthinker- today, as yesterday, that's Nazis, but NOW also conspiracy theorists and, increasingly, people who speak in favor of just regular nationalism, as the net of thought-crime grows- you wouldn't expect that tomorrow. You may not get it via a law against it, you may get it via some shenanigans like:
1- $THAT_GUY believes $WRONG_THING
2- You, $COMPANY, are offering him a service that allows him to validate that he's not drunk (the same service you offer to literally everyone else for existing)
3- By offering him this service, you are supporting $WRONG_THING
4- Now the company cuts off the service, and the car won't validate and can't drive.
This is already happening today with things like paypal, visa, and mastercard, and it's already spread well beyond actually racist circles (no one really complained when those guys got thrown out from civil life), and is being used against progressively more and more people. There's absolutely no reason to assume it won't continue to grow, because the groups organized to fight for civil liberties are instead cheering this kind of shit on because of the left/right divide.
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"There are municipalities with laws against using/driving ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles in certain areas of their corporate limits."
Yeah, refineries sometimes do that. For obvious reasons.
Municipalities in the EU do it too. But only for old diesels and very old gasoline-fueled vehicles that are too polluting. I think the council banning them from entering the city should also support those citizens that have an older car with exchanging it for a newer one, but they don't. Too expensive and this
Re: And thats not all... (Score:4, Informative)
You really think the people who drive pre-smogcheck cars do so because they can't afford to buy something newer? Aside from the original VW Beetle, for which parts practically fall from the sky and which can be successfully worked on by a blind drunken monkey with a $20 starter toolkit from Walgreens; the maintenance and operation of old cars is stupidly expensive. A Civic, Corolla, Accord, or Camry; OTOH, ever since the '90s, will run basically forever so long as you keep the fluids changed on-schedule. The people who go through the trouble to keep up old pre-smog mostly do so for a few reasons:
1). It's their hobby. They just like maintaining and driving classic cars... 2002s, DB5s, old 911s, original MINIs, etc. these are not their daily drivers anyway.
2). They never accepted that the 1960s are over. And damned if they're EVER going to let "the man" get them out of their VW Microbus. These people are slowly dying out.
3). They think that emissions controls are inherently evil. "CARB = Communism" Yes, I've actually seen that bumper sticker a few times. Not sure what can be said or done about these people; except that there are fortunately few enough of then that they can be considered to be edge cases and mostly ignored.
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Yes, the Nazis were famous for being opposed to the internal combustion engine. You knob.
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Re: And thats not all... (Score:4, Insightful)
The person who posted that picture doesn't know how to drive.
When you merge, it is far safer and more orderly for everyone to merge at the same place, so that it's easy to "zip" the cars together. The only obvious place for this to occur that everyone can see and agree upon is at the very end.
When you don't have dipshits merging in early, the whole merge can become a thing of grace of beauty with little slowdonw.
When one asshole decides they have too much anxiety to properly merge left-right-left-right is when problems crop up.
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Maybe we can give this guy a red card.
That guy is merging at the point which is both logical, and legally mandated. That is the point at which we zipper (take one vehicle from each lane.) If you don't understand this, please stop driving, as you are certainly doing it wrong.
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You will also have to load a drunk passenger into the boot, can't have them sitting alongside you and breathing on you. Men with wives who drink too much and don't drive, I don't think those wives will accept having getting the boot (see boot sounds better than trunk).
So what happens if I get alchohol spilled on me, do I have to drive naked. How about, waiters and waitresses go on strike, after being banned from driving home from work, they can drive to work but can not drive home with clothes full of alcoh
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Though the driver is an asshole for trying to merge from a standstill at the end.
Well, you don't know if he drove past everybody as quickly as he could, got there and found no gap (in which case, you're probably right) or if he joined the road, found it congested and matched the speed of the vehicles next to him, waited for a gap to open and got fucked over by selfish cunts in the next line (in which case he's not the one to be berating).
My experience is that matching the speed but staying in that extra lane improves everybody's traffic flow without upsetting the people I'm about to mer
Re: And thats not all... (Score:5, Insightful)
Using mouthwash doesn't make you drunk, but the small amount of alcohol will trip a breath meter for up to an hour after use.
Using hand sanitizer doesn't make you drunk, but can trip a touch based sensor for a couple hours after use.
Your comment makes the assumption that the devices are actually 100% accurate in determining if someone is actually drunk. They're not.
Re:And thats not all... (Score:5, Insightful)
The possibility of a false positive is what's wrong; not with me or any other critic of the system, but with the idea of the system itself.
Aromatic-based system? What if I'm the designated driver for some drunk friends? If there's a chance that my car won't start for me, that's unacceptable. I used to tend bar. Oddly enough, that was one of the most sober periods of my life because I quickly became disgusted with drunks and stopped drinking for a long while even after I quit the job. But one spilt drink, and I'd stink like a drunk. So, likewise, a car that would not start for me after work would have been entirely unacceptable.
Touch-based system? Well, there's the aforementioned bartending job again. After an entire shift, it's pretty likely that my hands have come into contact with plenty of spilt alcohol. Yeah, we'd wash our hands... and then immediately sanitize them. That hand sanitizer contains... yup... alcohol. Then, there are the people who work with chemicals, including ethanol and methanol as part of their industrial jobs.
Sure, if the system is good enough such that there's never a chance of a false positive such that someone who's not drunk can't start their car; then sure this *might* be a good idea. I don't exactly have a lot of confidence that it would be good enough to not have false positives though; particularly if it's meant to be cheap enough to add to every car on the road without undue additional expense.
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But one spilt drink, and I'd stink like a drunk.
I bet you didn't test positive to any alcohol though. Why not let the developers and the scientists actually release a product before you declare what is wrong with it from your armchair.
misspelled headline (Score:4, Interesting)
not 'automakers'.. but more like 'lobbyists', 'commercial interests', and 'investors', hyping the (currently flawed) technology to 'law enforcement', the 'insurance industry' and 'advocates'.
automakers themselves wouldn't want this. the more accidents there are, the more parts and cars they sell; and this would be an aftermarket add-on anyway, not something installed at the factory on every vehicle that they could mark up 5000%.
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Re: misspelled headline (Score:3)
Automakers don't want more accidents. Think that through...
More parts means more complex & inefficient supply chains and inventory costs. And most repairs are paid by insurance; and they don't just roll over on the bill. So low profits, higher volatility, and lots of wasted resources.
Then there is the loss of resale value that will impact your brand and initial market price. Loss of customer satisfaction, etc.
I don't think anyone but lawyers want more accidents.
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Sure, but around here distracted driving is much more of a concern and dwarfs the alcohol-related accidents.
So. That means that the car will have to shut down if it detects any sort of wifi device/LTE modem in the car.
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Lower resale value? The ideal behind car manufactures (and video game manufacturers) is zero resale dollars. Difference in video game manufacturers are taking active steps to drive it to zero, and car manufacturers aren't... yet.
And of course car companies make bank on replacement parts. That's a significant percentage of their income... I think in the 20% range, but I don't recall. It was double digits.
And, you left out the followon effects. Dealers love repairs, because they charge to get it fixed.
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Well, What Could Possibly Go Wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
Guy comes out of the bar because it closes at 2 AM, gets in his car, it won't start 'cuz he's lit up big-time, he can't run the heater, it's International Falls, Mn with a current temp of -35 degrees, there's no one around and he passes out and dies of hypothermia.
Naw, never happen, eh?
Why don't the car makers just make us those self driving cars where we can tell it to go home and then crawl in the back seat and sleep all the way into the garage, eh? Probably because they don't have a clue how to do that safely any more than they will have a clue how to do this and not kill anyone either.
Re:Well, What Could Possibly Go Wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it will happen. But if 10 drunk idiots freeze to death and 10,000 drunk driving related deaths are eliminated, that seems a good trade doesn't it?
And that's making a lot of assumptions -- a few years out from now even if the engine won't start, he's probably got an electric, so the heater will work just fine even if the car refuses to move. He'll also probably have phone with which he can call people for help. Even old cars will run the accesories without the engine running (although many old cars don't have electric heat as they just use engine heat). But seriously... I lived in manitoba. If your driving around at 2am in -35 below in the spaces without a lot of people without some emergency thermal gear in the car, blankets, candles, emergency lights/flares, maybe a even a little camp stove/heater ... then you are asking for trouble.
Now If you are wandering around 'lit up big time' by yourself, at 2am, in that environment, *knowing* you own a car that doesn't start if you are drunk, and you don't have a backup plan and/or are too drunk to execute it... well... that's a darwin award candidate.
I mean seriously... what happens in your world when at 2am, at -35 in winter he goes to start the car and then it dies half way home because he ran out of gas, because he was too lit to notice the fuel need was on empty, and nothing was open at 2am anyway...
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Indeed. This must have been a statement based on solid research.
Re:Well, What Could Possibly Go Wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, but there are actually three failure modes here.
That last one is the big one, because the vast majority of trips are by non-drunk drivers. So a tiny false-positive failure rate can result in a large number of incidents. Typically, increasing the true-positive rate also increases the false-positive rate. That is, reducing the rate at which the system fails to stop a drunk driver also increases the rate at which it mistakenly thinks a non-drunk driver is drunk and prevents them from driving. You have to add the inconvenience and even deaths resulting from the false-positives to your tradeoff balance. Someone who is not drunk could be prevented from driving their car on a -35 F winter night, and freeze to death.
Re: Well, What Could Possibly Go Wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on. Are you really trying that hard to be dense? You can envision that entire scenario, but you canâ(TM)t envision a system that would allow the engine to start but not put the car into drive?
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Guy comes out of the bar because it closes at 2 AM, [snip] he's lit up big-time [snip] it's International Falls, Mn with a current temp of -35 degrees, there's no one around and he passes out and dies of hypothermia.
Fixed that for you. I'm sure it happens all the time. Whether the car doesn't start because it was snowed-in, the battery has frozen or if he was just too rat-arsed to find the right car and get the key in the ignition - get too bladdered to save yourself in a region where it gets that cold at night and you can pick up your Darwin award on your way to the afterlife. As for the breath-test system - worked as intended and stopped an idiot driving while pissed. I'd hope that the population of Int Falls Mn. a
Re: Well, What Could Possibly Go Wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)
Better scenario, woman running from potential mugger/carjacker canâ(TM)t start car fast enough because of breath test device, gets attacked and killed. Time then for surviving family to go after auto maker for liability.
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Middle of the night with -35 degrees frost and completely plastered? He's heading for a fatal accident anyway. Letting him freeze to death doesn't make a difference for him, but it does make a huge difference on the odds of him taking someone else along were he to have an accident.
If you knee-jerk, you might find your analogies lacking a certain...analytical...aspect.
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They also die from exhaust inhalation running the engine for hours while not moving, so the rest of your fantasy falls apart there.
Aside from the post that already points out that ICE vehicles use the engine coolant to provide heat to the passenger compartment, I challenge you to cite a single example of death by CO poisoning from a running vehicle that was outdoors and not in an enclosed space. You really don't know much about cars, do you?
Re: Well, What Could Possibly Go Wrong... (Score:2)
You donâ(TM)t know much about cars yourself, do you?
If the cars exhaust is blocked with snow, there is a danger of CO poisoning.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/... [nbcwashington.com]
https://www.westfargopioneer.c... [westfargopioneer.com]
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A classic idiot posting on Slashdot. In the winter your battery will die long before it gets your car warm. In fact, most cars get their cabin heat from the engine heat. If your engine can't start, your car won't get warm. No chance.
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Re: Well, What Could Possibly Go Wrong... (Score:2)
The difference is drunk driving spreads the liability onto relatively poor drunk drivers, who are then taken off the road to make us all safer. This device would be 100% the liability of the manufacturer. It only takes one wrongful death suit to put most companies out of business, and rightly so.
Re: Well, What Could Possibly Go Wrong... (Score:2)
And I am sure we can have the best of both worlds by not having it shift out of park but allow the car to turn on. It's honestly not that hard to do...
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Even most electric cars are capable of using powertrain waste heat to heat the cabin, supplemented by the heat pump system when necessary.
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Even most electric cars are capable of using powertrain waste heat to heat the cabin, supplemented by the heat pump system when necessary.
Hybrid maybe, electric no.
Can we not?? (Score:5, Insightful)
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> Making it technically impossible for a drunk driver to drive is worthwhile
That cannot be independent of the mechanism used. You could of course also achieve this by banning cars.
The problem with outcome-obsessed people suchas yourself is that there are no red lines you will not cross regarding freedom, intrusiveness, and absolute government control.
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Gonna have to have an exemption for some people though. Their medicine sets off the breath tests but doesn't impede their ability to drive.
Re: Can we not?? (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)ve always been puzzled by drunk driving, I mean sure the chances of getting pulled over by the cops are minuscule, but the consequences if you hit someone or are caught are just not worth risking. Canâ(TM)t travel anymore, jail time, criminal record, personally I
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There are many things about cars which you are legally obliged to do, or not do, despite you owning the car. It would be difficult to see how is significantly different.
Cars are big, hard and move fast. It's not unreasonable that there are limitations put on these devices so that they are safe for everybody else.
Drink-driving laws current exist and are fairly punitive; stopping it up front sounds like a good thing. Of course, the system has to work well, not be intrusive, not have false positives and so for
Re:Can we not?? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many things about cars which you are legally obliged to do, or not do, despite you owning the car. It would be difficult to see how is significantly different.
I have never driven drunk. However, I dated a girl who had a boyfriend with an interlock and also have a friend that had an interlock. The technology is incredibly unreliable. And I don't mean unreliable from a BAC standpoint but from actually being able to start your car. And if the interlock device isn't working properly and you try to start your car? You get a huge fine and can potentially be thrown in jail. Not because you actually tried to drive drunk but because the device itself malfunctioned.
Cars are big, hard and move fast. It's not unreasonable that there are limitations put on these devices so that they are safe for everybody else.
Which is why we should make it more difficult to get a drivers license in the first place. I see hundreds of people on my commute every day that should not have a drivers license. I think they are a far larger risk to my personal safety and to society in general than the small number of drunk drivers, who, by the way, probably wouldn't have a drivers license in the first place if we made testing more difficult.
Re:Can we not?? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the bigger take-away is that no ideological position is absolute - not even presumption of innocence. Reasonable violations are allowable as long as we remain vigilant against a slippery slope progression. e.g. We already require people to prove their age when buying alcohol.
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So you think it's fine that the vast majority of safe drivers including people who don't drink at all have to pay an extra thousand dollars on a non-optional device that reduces their new car's reliability? And they get to pay outrageous repair costs as well when the device inevitably prevents a totally sober driver from starting the car?
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I have the right to do anything I want, as long as it doesn't impinge on others' liberties or wallets. In the case of things like seat belts and motorcycle helmets, if somebody chooses not to use them and is in a high-speed collision, who pays to clean up the mess? Is it the genius who believes a seat belt's only purpose is to keep you from getting "safely" thrown out the car? When the highway shuts down because road pizza has to be cleaned and the accident site inspected, Is it the freedom-loving bike r
Diabetics? OtherFalse Positives? (Score:3, Insightful)
Diabetics sometimes have sugary, alcohol-y breath depending on their condition and whether they are having blood sugar spikes. Does this "smart" technology take that into account?
I can "have" "excessively high" alcohol on my breath if I have an orange or some other fruit directly before getting into the car. Will it not fall for that?
What about you playing designated driver for a passenger who is totally sloshed but not driving, yet breathing normally? Or breathing heavily while talking in your direction? Does this shut you out of that?
What happens if you are having a glass of wine at a meal and then your spouse / S.O. has a medical emergency and needs driven to the hospital? Is it, "sorry, no-go even for emergencies?"
So many ways this can go wrong. So many ways this can go wrong without us knowing how bad it can be until we have a personal crisis cropping up in front of us.
The instant this causes injury or death from any of the above scenarios or others we haven't imagined yet, you're going to see a veritable tsunami of lawsuits to get this junky "smart" crap out of the cars.
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Diabetics sometimes have sugary, alcohol-y breath
The correct description is "fruity", and it's due to ketone bodies present in the blood, not sugar. The blood is chock full of sugar and yet without insulin (or the correct response to insulin), this sugar is not making it into cells, so the body is literally starving to death despite all that sugar. Ketone bodies are produced by fatty acid metabolism, a sign that starvation has been going on for a while...
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I never, ever drive after having drunk any amount of alcohol the previous 12 hours. Not because I am a saint but because it is easier to get right than trying to judge state of intoxication.
Yeah, I'm, by choice, in dietary (mild) ketosis so I am likely giving off ketone bodies in my breath. They are know to confuse breath-a-lyzers. Does that mean that I will not be to drive a car?
Oh, and I have driven while tired and I bet that that is ten times worse than drunk driving so I don't do that either.
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Some breathalyzers mis-read the ketones as alcohol. To the point that there are videos showing how to use a cheap breathalyzer to monitor your progress if you're on a "keto diet"
The ketones appear any time fats are being converted for energy, diabetic or not. If a diabetic injects late or not quite enough, the ketones appear even when they're not in metabolic trouble. It does become more pronounced when they are in metabolic trouble, but well before more overt signs appear.
So expect incidents where a diab
Two Irish guys walk out of a bar . . . (Score:2)
Another socialist big government fantasy (Score:2, Insightful)
Moreover, the claim that such technology works is most likely BS. I am one of the most alert drivers, and yet while I drive my brand new Honda Pilot, I see a light flashing "brake! brake!, you will crash!!! or I will brake for you!", even though there is no one driving in front of me. So after getting about 5-10 of such false positives a day, I simply turned off this idiotic collision braking mitigation system BS whatever shit they call it, and I never us
I wonder (Score:3)
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Great? (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Eventually, the device could become standard equipment, just like air bags. "
Great- so even though I don't drink and nobody else ever drives my car, I would have to add yet another $500 or $1000 or something to the price of any car I want to buy, for yet another feature I don't want or need.
Oh, and for those who do drink- I am sure that information about your "level" histories will be kept super-duper secret and never stored, phoned-home, or be accessible by other companies or government.
Oh, and I am sure it will never fail or be inaccurate and lock me out of my own car AND create a lie record about my BAC. And I am sure it would never hold the owner responsible for something someone else did or a passenger.
Oh, and I am sure it will stop with just BAC and not be enhanced with later models to detect other legal drugs, then illegal drugs, then prescription drugs.
Re:Great? (Score:5, Funny)
Great- so even though I don't drink and nobody else ever drives my car, I would have to add yet another $500 or $1000 or something to the price of any car I want to buy, for yet another feature I don't want or need.
Right... not to mention the additional fuel cost of having to leave your vehicle running while you're at the pub.
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Car companies don't give anything for free (Score:2)
That's a little tricky though. What you've got to watch out for aren't bleeding heart liberals or puritanical right wingers, it's the corporatists. If the politicians do make these mandatory it won't be for safety, it'll be to line the auto company's pockets with extra cash from a useless "safety" feature.
Drunk Driving is NOT #1 (Score:3)
Given how at least 40,000 die in the USA yearly and how we flip out over tragedies that amount to a rounding error... you'd think something would be done if any rationality was involved
1) Drunk Driving is not the #1 cause. It's DISTRACTED driving. so now lets try to solve #4 rather than address the big elephant in the room?
Require bluetooth linking that disables nearly all the phone's features. A century of cars without smart phones prove it's not necessary to use both. The brats can learn to sit in the ca
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It does not need to phone home. Do you realize you have a black box in your car already which can be used against you after a crash?
Do you realize your cell info tracks you already which can be used against you... it is already SOLD by your cell company, and some keep your whole history years back.
Do you realize the DEA has been gathering plate scans from police nationwide and building tracking data for any car they pick up on a participating scanner?
This is just an idea similar to the chip credit cards an
And for those who are stoned? (Score:2)
States which have legalized marijuana have seen increases in automobile accidents [fortune.com] since legalization. Up to 6% more accidents.
What about other drugs? Is this technology going to test for their presence as well?
Cell phones (Score:2)
More likely pot smokers are fooling with their phones or car electronics more carelessly and that is causing the accidents. Pot certainly is not making them into aggressive drivers; less stressed and worried by risks.
Disclaimer: I've never tried the stuff.
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Pot certainly is not making them into aggressive drivers; less stressed and worried by risks.
Marijuana is a depressant. It dulls the senses and slows reaction times. In some people, marijuana has been shown to induce symptoms of paranoia [psychologytoday.com] as well as other conditions which can impair judgement.
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States which have legalized marijuana have seen increases in automobile accidents since legalization. Up to 6% more accidents.
Yes, but cannabis-involved fatalities fell in at least one case [reason.com]. Cannabis may turn out to be like roundabouts, increasing the number of accidents but reducing the number of fatalities.
Lets see... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about emergencies? (Score:5, Interesting)
I do not drive drunk or after drinking... but one time I did. My dad and me was out fishing and drinking. He had a stroke and I had to drive him to the hospital even though I had drunk more than a few beers. They were able to save him because I made it in to the hospital in time. Were we live an ambulance takes at least 60min to get here. Now I got him to the hospital in under an hour.
I will never get any transportation that will decide for me whether I should drive or not.
How many lives will this new life saver cost? How many rapes, assaults and kidnappings will it cause because the car decides you should not be allowed to flee a bad situation?
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This is a fair objection, and there are several more.
I'm not an advocate of this law or anything,
But these edge cases are nothing that can't be worked around. Just off the top of my head, one solution would be that even if the driver is drunk, the car would still start (maybe after a couple tries)?
But while driving, maybe some lights keep flashing or the horn goes off continuously or something. Basically something to let people know you are driving in an emergency. If the cops see that, well you should be g
Emergencies (Score:5, Interesting)
That's just great. There's a forest fire or some other emergency, and I need to use my car, but I can't because it decides I've been drinking. Nice. Well, I had it coming.
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Make the system easy to override with the implicit knowledge that the system will flag your vehicle for a "probable cause" stop. If you happen to then pass by any law enforcement, you will be stopped and queried.
Automakers? (Score:2)
Why would automakers want this? This sounds like something politicians and lawmakers want and are pressuring the auto industry to implement. From a purely financial standpoint, automakers make a lot of money off of drunk drivers. All those accidents result in lots of totaled cars that are replaced with insurance money. Looking at the DUI related stats, we're talking billions of dollars in losses each year because of this (although the majority of that would have to be medical expenses and liability type pa
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The reason is that safety features sell cars. Please like to feel safe and will purchase cars based on feature checklists.
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Government wants total authority (Score:3)
They are worse than Cartman in his wildest dreams.
So they will hit you over the head with a sledgehammer.
Unwatned features adding costs (Score:3)
No Sale (Score:3)
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How does it know... (Score:2)
...if the alcohol is coming from the driver or a passenger? Can the air flow be controlled so precisely it can tell when there's a designated driver?
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I am sure there would be backup methods (e.g. ambient false positive? blow into the tube. etc)
I am also sure that the system would be trivial to defeat by most monkeys but the notion here is that a log would be kept and that log could be critical in determining the cause of a crash after the fact. It would also prevent some deaths so the end effect is that it is better than what we have now.
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Or the driver's clothing, if they've had alcohol spilled on them?
Another thing to bust (Score:2)
QI (Score:2)
zero-tolerance (Score:4, Interesting)
10 Ridiculous Instances Of Zero Tolerance In Schools [listverse.com] — 10 October 2015
Now you don't always know the context behind these things, but there's clearly something wrong here. Bottom line is that this kind of thing is used to bully the population, and isn't that different in spirit from the Chinese Social Credit System.
One day, someone is going to eat a vanilla-extract flavoured pancake, and then his wife is going to give birth halfway to the hospital, because his car refused to start, and then it will be on Fox News for weeks and weeks, because of how the New Left is now horning in on their traditional territory.
'Secret' Nuclear Missile Launch Code During Cold War Was '00000000' [huffingtonpost.ca] — 5 December 2013
SAC was so concerned the car wouldn't start at the worst possible time, they effectively flipped the bird to the Commander-in-Chief behind his back.
Nothing like a zero-tolerance giggle (times eight) at Kennedy's expense behind his back.
Rule Makers, Rule Breakers (2018) by Michele Gelfand.
I get making a big deal out of the seemingly insignificant (even the Pop-Tart gun). But what goes under the name "zero tolerance" typically involves horrifically disproportionate responses, while all the people paid to be in charge wander around vacuously explaining that their hands are tied. Inevitably, some ridiculous outcome arises that is not a good look for the human species.
What does the left have to do with this? (Score:3)
I'm so damn sick of folks saying "The Left" when wha
Sounds like Theranos. (Score:2)
This whole spiel makes them sound like Theranos. They're just making a cash grab from M.A.D.D. and related groups.
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Guilty Till Proven Innocent (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Existing draconian criminal justice system is a complete failure
2) nobody can give a drunk friend a ride home
3) you can't wear too much perfume
4) you just cant kill a bad idea
rather than actually deal with emotional problems or have a public mental health system - lets remove more rights from people and force them to pay for unnecessary gadgets..
Luckily ... (Score:2)
make a ... reading of every driver's blood alcohol content (BAC) level when the driver attempts to start the vehicle.
It's called "drinking and driving" not "drinking and starting" so just remember to either (a) keep the car running before/while you drink or (b) start drinking after you start the car. Problem solved.
Actually you probably will be able to drive. (Score:2)
There is always a work around (and what a great defence in court for drunk drivers,"The car started so I thought I wasn't drunk"). You would have to imagine that the car will work if there is a passenger that is drunk. Otherwise, how exactly am I supposed to responsibly catch a taxi?
Toyota Hilux has a system where if you have something on the passenger seat and you go over a bump it occasionally registers that there is a passenger and starts beeping as the seat belt isn't done up. The easy fix for this is
A non-starter until AVs are here (Score:3)
This is a non-starter (pun intended) until we have autonomous vehicles. Then it might be reasonable to make you pass such a test if you want to drive yourself, otherwise the car does everything for you.
Automakers don't give a shit whether such devices are deployed or not. If they are legally mandated, then there's no competitive drawback.
Yet another complex solution .. (Score:5, Insightful)
..with lots of unintended consequences
So called "smart" devices are often really, really stupid
Can a device like this work perfectly every time?
What about edge cases, like escaping from a forest fire, earthquake of volcano?
What about all of the complex failure modes I, or the programmers who create it, am not clever enough to anticipate?
What if you are hauling cargo that gives off an aroma that triggers the unit?
What if there is some scent in the air that triggers it, like a train derailment or pipeline leak?
I would argue that it's impossible to make it work perfectly, and I strongly oppose the idea
And no, I don't drive drunk or advocate drunk driving
This idea should be strangled in its cradle (Score:3)
A friend of mine got convicted of drunk driving, and had to have one of these devices installed in her car for a year.
They don't work.
People who claim they do work are either idiots or paid liars who work for the companies supplying them. I spent most of that year waiting for a phone call to come and get her from wherever she happened to be when the device decided she had been drinking. On a couple of occasions, it would demand a random breath sample while she was driving (having decided minutes before she was fine to start the car and drive), and then it would knock out her ignition IN TRAFFIC! Another time, we ate a couple of pepperoni sausages at the local deli. The device decided pepperoni breath = drunk, and wouldn't let either of us start the car. On yet another occasion, it disabled the car and left her stranded on a major highway. The police arrived within minutes and gave her a breathalyzer test, which she passed with flying colours. So the cops stood there and watched while she blew into this fucking device and it said she was drunk.
If I am forced to own a car that has something like this in it, I will find a way to disable it and escape the consequences (because you can bet your bum there will be consequences). But before things go that far, I hope enough drivers rise up in righteous wrath against this nonsense and summarily vote out legislators who allow cars equipped with such devices to be sold in their jurisdiction.
And just for the record, the times I have come closest to being killed by a car involved drivers who were texting instead of paying attention to the road. I've seen drunk drivers. I've even phoned 911 on one. But statistically and anecdotally, they aren't the ones causing most of the carnage on our roads.
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Ok, your daughter is running from an assailant, and the drunk assailant jumps into his car to chase her down. His car refuses to let him drive drunk, so she escapes. Good job protecting her safety.
Re: If "they" really want them! (Score:3)
Or all those companies with fleets like rentals, delivery, service etc businesses will see this as a valuable add on to prevent liabilities from drunk irresponsible drivers.
And their insurance may reward them for it.
What exactly are you afraid of?
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And I want a pony. Without the responsibility of cleaning up.