Automakers will be required to install ‘breathalyzer’-style systems in all new cars starting in 2026 as part of the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill.
The Transportation Department will be tasked with developing the new technology automakers will be forced to install on vehicles.
The system must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired,” according to the broadly-written legislation.
It may not entail blowing into a tube, but the system could involve something even more Orwellian: infrared cameras that track and monitor driver behavior.
Big Brother at work. Why not. US intelligence agencies can and have listened in to our cellphone conversations for decades. This is just more step toward government behavior control.
So how much will these gizmos raise the cost of a new vehicle?
OK will these devices be able to detect if a driver is under the influence of marijuana? Fair is fair.
Sounds like the insurance industry lobbyists have been busy again. When your objective is reducing claims expense, and someone else has to pay the compliance costs, the want list tends to be infinite.
If the sensors pick up erratic driving they will respond to chemical intoxicants, cell phone use, distractions from using the electronic screen in the car, fatigue, physical disease (such as a heart attack) and anything else that causes erratic driving. Some illegal, some not.
Maybe an erratic driver should receive a warning to pull over before the car shuts itself off. A statistical projection of traffic fatalities for 2021 shows that an estimated 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes nationwide. This represents an increase of about 10.5 percent as compared to 38,824 fatalities reported in 2020. That doesn’t count crashes where nobody died even if there were injuries.
It’s pretty hard to argue against a device that prevents drunk driving. Should have been mandatory years ago.
No amount of freedom is worth allowing drunks behind the wheel.
Funny, Reason said nothing about “kill” switches or nor any suggestion of providing law enforcement with data collected. It does suggest that perhaps the required technology is not ready for prime time while a congressional critter claims such technology does exist.
The article does claim “that car manufacturers will have to devote a lot of time and money to developing these drunk driving detection features.”
Well I’m sure they will do that development for free…cough cough.
The same technology used on cars and trucks shall be applied to all legislative bodies in the US. This data shall be live-streamed to the US public at no charge to viewers.
THEN listen to the socio-polititcal bureaucrats squeal !!!