And when the sensor fails, your car is a brick. Gee. I wonder what the markup on replacement sensors is gonna be. I wonder how intentionally failure-prone the sensor is gonna be too.
Even worse, let’s say you are having a weather based emergency like what happened in Texas last winter… And the winter before and will probably happen again this winter… You’ve hooked up your vehicle as an emergency generator. But you can’t turn it on because of this sensor.
You’re not even trying to drive, you’re just trying to get some power to your HVAC system so you don’t freeze to death.
Sure, that’s just one example and it doesn’t happen every day, but this thing could prevent successful outcomes in multiple emergency situations.
We’re better off investing in proper public transit rather than this shit.
Investing in public transit may accidentally help the poors, and they can’t have that upon their conscience.
My bad, I’ll try to think of a more capitalist friendly solution
I know, public transport but a bus ticket is like $45 and there’s a TV screen blaring ads that you all the time. Also, the entire thing is built into a Faraday cage so you can’t use cellular data but they do sell Wi-Fi access.
Wait, your alternator can’t make enough power at idle to power a whole furnace… did you actually do that?
I haven’t personally done this, but I’m more referring to the new tech that Ford is putting out for its f150 lightning (given the article was referring to new cars, I figured that’s fair game). You can use the truck as a battery back up for your home, since it’s an EV you don’t have to worry about idle and alternators.
It wouldn’t be able to do a big house’s heating, but a small efficient heat pump would likely be fine.
Quick edit: I’m an idiot, the onboard controller in the truck automatically switches.
The f150 lightning doesn’t have to be on to provide power, it comes from the bed of the truck at all times, no breathalyzer would be needed for that scenario.
I didn’t even realize the F-150 was electric. Or is there just an electric variant?
It’s specifically the f-150 lightning
Saw the edit, not an idiot at all, I only happened to have watched a YouTube on it when it came out, otherwise I wouldn’t have known it even had a plug back there.
I’d like to know how the sensor will ensure the driver is sober when they’re the responsible designated driver trying to bring home a carload full of plastered friends… I have at least one friend that I know would think it’s hilarious (at the time) if he was a drunk passenger and could make the car stop by breathing on the driver etc.
A camera could focus on the drivers seat, but I feel like that would be lousy at this sort of thing… Is the driver drunk, is he shivering because it’s cold out? Does he have a cold, or even just a lazy eye or suffer from tremors of some sort?
Any sort of breath or touch sensor is going to need to be smart enough to distinguish between driver & passengers. And if it’s a touch sensor in the steering wheel does that mean no more gloves on a cold winter day?
A camera could focus on the drivers seat
You can guarantee it’ll be the lowest quality camera possible. Won’t work in anything other than direct sunlight, until probably require you to take your glasses off if you wear them.
The law requires a technology safety standard by November 2024 if the technology is ready.
The technology will never be ready. The accuracy required for such a thing to not be universally despised is absurd.
The technology will never be ready
I think you are right, I hope they don’t push it in a half assed state.
Achieving the accuracy is not the major problem here, but keeping it accurate. You have to make it robust enough so it doesn’t fail at random (sensors in general are a bitch in this regard) and it has to hold a perfect calibration for long enough (a assume chemical detection sensor, which again, are a super-bitch regarding calibrations), while also making it at least a bit hard to bypass. The other problem is the privacy nightmare this can be, analyzing fluids or cameras pointing to your face… are they gonna sell this data to insurance companies (just as an example, it could be other companies, your employer…)? Of course they are!
The only thing I would expect from this is a lot of people pissed or worst because of malfunctions while all the drunktards stay on the road by simply filling a ballon before they start drinking.Mother Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
Aaaand of course this is been pushed by some Puritan-Americans lol
Tldr I rant at hypothetical, you can safely skip this
If I have a sensor, it’s getting removed. If there’s a camera or some such thing connecting to anywhere, it’s either removed or I simply won’t buy that car. Anything mandated by law for the end-user is getting bypassed and removed until there’s some sort of inspection for it.
I don’t drink, at all. Never could stand the taste of alcohol. So anything mandated by law to make sure I’m not drinking and driving is simply an inconvenience, another barrier between a person and what is necessity to do anything in this country (no I don’t care that some people can personally get to your work, the store, and family with a 10 minute bus ride, that simply isn’t reality for anyone outside dense cities) and I’m pretty biased against government agencies raising the bar for things that mostly only affect poorer people.
A rich dude will never need to worry about replacing a bad sensor, or what if the broken sensor trips again and I can’t drive to work again.
The single mother of 3 in a rusting minivan, however, isn’t so lucky.
But man will they be able to spend a whole bunch of money trying to get there…
“There are too many drunk drivers! It must be because we don’t have any way to stop every car in case someone drunk sits in the driver’s seat!” “What if we increased public transportation so people could take that instead if they’d been drinking?” “There must be a way to disable these cars!”
The busses where I live used to stop running around 12:30am out of downtown. It was ridiculous as people wouldn’t leave that early if they were at shows which meant cabs or drunk driving for the irresponsible.
They finally changed it to 1:30am for some routes which helped a bit, but it really needs to be after last call.
I don’t think the current level of drunk driving is large enough to violate everyone’s privacy to catch the very few drivers who drank too much. I’m much more worried about road rage drivers than drunk drivers. Road ragers are actively trying to hurt or kill people.
I worry a lot more about road rage and distracted drivers than drunks. Last week in the nearby large-ish city a woman was run off the side of a bridge and her car fell 60ft and landed on it’s roof in the river bed. She will be OK, but still yikes.
Road rage is bigger than just drivers. Most violent crime is committed by young men. Ideally, these people would have better access to jobs and free mental health care.
Yes, some counselling would help. Just talking to someone who isn’t related to you or in a relationship with you can be enlightening.
No, you’re supposed to submit to a finger up the bum because some child thinks this will actually work as intended.
In 2021… The law requires a technology safety standard by November 2024 if the technology is ready.
Still, NHTSA must be assured the technology works before it can require it, and then give automakers at least three years to implement it once it finalizes rules.
“If it’s [only] 99.9% accurate, you could have a million false positives,” Carlson said. “Those false positives could be somebody trying to get to the hospital for an emergency.”
The article title is too much optimistic, not going to happen in the next few years
“Those false positives could be somebody trying to get to the hospital for an emergency.”
Add an emergency button that overrides the lock and also calls the police.
Great, another problem.
There’s no problem you can’t make worse by calling the police.
So along with an alcohol sensor there has to be a cellular connection bc as well? What happens when you’re stuck in a rural area with little/no cell coverage? And who is paying the cost of all this new technology?
So now the police have to act as mechanics? What if the emergency is not life threatening, but I could lose my job if I don’t get some paperwork to the courthouse in time? Do I still have to get the police involved for an override? Maybe the emergency is I have to get my kids to school. Maybe the emergency is I have an ice cream cake melting in the trunk of my car. At what point is it too trivial to waste the time of emergency services because a sensor went bad?
What if a different sensor in your car went bad and kept the engine from starting, even though the engine is mechanically sound?
This isn’t a new issue.Then there is something dramatically wrong with my car, because there shouldn’t be one sensor that prevents the car from working entirely. A car kept in good repair should not suddenly and completely stop working. If you’re handy, you might even fix whatever is wrong with the car yourself. If my battery dies, I can jump start the car. I had a car once that would fail to start unless you pushed it downhill a bit to reduce the resistance to turning over.
A breathalyzer is often wrong. Diabetes can cause ketosis that will trigger a positive breathalyzer. Someone on the atkins diet could have ketones on their breath. Worst of all, they can be fooled by someone who is drunk and wants to bypass the restrictions, so it’s probably not going to actually stop any drunks who are trying to drive.
This is a brand new issue, because you’re talking about a device that doesn’t exist yet which passively and reliably detects impairment or BAC and then deliberately and completely disables a vehicle with no recourse. I’m in favor of preventing drunk driving, but we need a better solution than “invent a technology that somehow prevents drunk driving.” That’s not even a plan, it’s a vision board. Maybe the device should reduce emissions and provide healthcare, too.
Perfect, I can get shot by the cops while trying to get to the hospital.
“Those false positives could be somebody trying to get to the hospital for an emergency.”
If you need to go to the hospital for an emergency call an ambulance and don’t use it as an excuse for driving while drunk.
This is the USA. If you call the ambulance you need to take out a new mortgage on your house.
Imagine a family member showing signs of a stroke and you’re twenty minutes outside of town. Are you really going to call for an ambulance and double the wait time before they’re in the ER? Check your privilege city boy.
Just so I understand, in the context that you are replying to the theme of the article
the family member is showing signs of a stroke. The ambulance is going to take some time. You’ve been drinking and are over the limit, but thats still the best choice? Drunkenly driving to the hospital?
The context of the quoted section of the article is about what an acceptable false positive rate would be, not about what situations drunk driving would be acceptable.
And as shown, no one shall believe there was a false positive. WCGW?
Hey genius, this is about false positives.
In Germany there is a maximum first response time (depending on the Bundesland) of 8 to 17 minutes. This is by law and it is regularly verified that those times are not exceeded. The timer starts the moment you call and ends when the medical staff arrives.
So yes, calling an ambulance that will be there in unter 20 minutes is the preferred way. They will also send an emergency doctor who can directly start working while driving back to the hospital.
This article is about the US, Dirk.
To get that response rate in the United States, literally every single US citizen we have to work as a ambulance driver, and they still wouldn’t be enough
That sounds great for Germany, but what does that have to do with the US where this law is being mandated? The US isn’t like Germany in any way that matters to this discussion.
Cool.
What’s the first response time in the US?
Also, the ambulance has to go from the hospital to your house and back to the hospital, which is slower than a 1 way trip even with their sirens.
Not sure where you’re located, but in the US most ambulances aren’t based out of hospitals, usually there’s ambulance stations, or they’re attached to a fire company.
Now it’s a big country with a lot of different types of towns with their own unique situations, but there’s a lot of cases where your local ambulance company is going to be a lot closer to you than a hospital, which means they can make up the difference pretty easily with their sirens , and you start getting at least some level of treatment from EMTs or paramedics that much sooner.
the ambulance has to go from the hospital to your house and back
And it has a doctor on board. So the emergency treatment starts right at my house.
In the US, ambulances are staffed by medical technicians and have no connection to hospitals or doctors outside of delivering patients to them.
Ehh, restricted to the capacities of an ambulance which is why they’re taking you to a hospital anyways.
Also, the 1-way trip the ambulance makes to your house could be done in a similar amount of time as the 1-way trip you take to the hospital. Then your real treatment can begin.
Modern ambulances are rolling ICUs, though.
Ambulances almost never have a doctor onboard in the US
There are 2 main levels of EMS, Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) There’s some additional sub-categories, and some things vary according to local regulations and such, bit I’m just giving a very general overview.
As a general rule BLS will be staffed by EMTs and ALS will have a paramedic.
Paramedics can start an IV, administer some more medications than an EMT can, and provide some other more advanced treatments, but they stop well short of what a doctor can do.
Not all ambulances are staffed to the ALS level, a lot of places have had a hard time keeping their EMS agencies fully staffed, I know in my area, in theory, all of our agencies can provide ALS service, but frequently some of them have to go BLS-only due to staffing issues. Because of this, some areas have started expanding the scope of what EMTs are able to do to make up for a lack of paramedics (though they also often face a lack of EMTs as well)
I’m sure that’s the same over here. But the situation in this discussion was that a family member shows signs of a stroke, in this case I don’t think they will send an ambulance only capable to provide BLS but hopefully one of those.
The idea is that you are not actually drunk but in some upset condition because of an emergency. And that condition might trigger the anti-drunk mechanism. A breathalyzer might work, but the drunk drive can always get someone else to breath into it. Also not sure how much calibration such device needs, can it last for a few months in a cold/hot car and still work correctly?
Once you want something to validate the breathalyzer (to avoid asking your child to start your car for you while you are drunk) it get complicated and more error prone.
Yeah no problem, I’ll just pony up $4000 because I drank a single beer at the wrong time . Why are people like you like this? You literally cannot imagine a scenario you haven’t experienced and you express that lack of imagination by accusing anyone with imagination of being up to no good.
Seriously STFU
Damn! You have ambulance money?!? Nice
in that quote from the article, the hypothetical (and eventually, very real) victim of a false positive from less than absolute 100% accuracy is not a drunk.
“If it’s [only] 99.9% accurate, you could have a million false positives,” Carlson said. “Those false positives could be somebody trying to get to the hospital for an emergency.”
and ‘ambulance-worthy’ emergencies are not the only critical and potentially life-saving trips that could be affected by a false-positive. how about the doctor who would treat that person in the ER, or a volunteer firefighter responding to a call, or a parent going to fetch their teen after they call for a ride from an unsafe situation…
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Did you not see the second word in the quoted sentence?
The fuck? Do you have any idea how expensive ambulances are?
Last time I needed one my health insurance contacted me. I had to pay 10 Euros.
euros
Bruv, US healthcare is a different ballgame.
I heard about it. Is it really that bad? Preferring to drive to the hospital on your own in case of an emergency instead of calling an ambulance sounds really wild.
Could you drop 4000+ on a mile car ride?
I have only used an ambulance once but it was for a friend and I who got into a car wreck. It set us back close to 10k thankfully it was covered by insurance.
That’s insane!
100%.
Preferring to drive to the hospital on your own in case of an emergency instead of calling an ambulance sounds really wild.
It is.
I camp and hike and such in some very rural, mountainous areas pretty regularly, cell service is often very spotty in those places. I know one place off the top of my head that I’ve been to a few times that I’d have to drive a few minutes away to get a signal.
Off the top of my head, one way around this might be to pair the alcohol sensor with a cellular connection that can call 911, if the car has a signal then the alcohol sensor is required, if it doesn’t then the sensor is deactivated. You could also probably have better cellular equipment built into a car than a phone since you don’t have to make compromises to keep everything pocket-sized, so you could potentially have more of a signal in more places by calling from your car than you would with your phone.
Yep, there always will be edge cases.
Despite the laundry list of privacy and personal property infringements being an issue here this will also cause an issue for poorer people that cant afford the new markup for trash tech they dont need, and will create a new reason to be harassed. Cops will start pulling over and bothering every car that is made before this mandate. They can use this as an excuse to accuse people of intoxication and get real loose with their rights when they get rightfully angry.
I’m so glad my car doesnt have any onstar or cameras or any of this crap.
Yes, the entire point of this is to give kickbacks to whichever businesses provide this tech. Every additional feature added to a car raises the price more than what the feature costs to add.
The US is a joke.
“If it’s [only] 99.9% accurate, you could have a million false positives,” Carlson said. “Those false positives could be somebody trying to get to the hospital for an emergency.”
Tess Rowland, the president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), said the group was “very pleased” with NHTSA’s launch.
Fuck these people, they don’t give a fuck about lives, only their incredibly specific use-case.
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The issue is the initial testers and designers are mainly white and male. How are they going to do initial tests on dark skin if they are lighter than a piece of paper?
Original design shapes the product and future patches are not going to fix fundamental errors.
Soon enough you’ll need a blood and stool sample to start your car … and of course all the information will be sold to advertisers.
Something has gone wrong if we’ve crossed universes where South Park is making predictions instead of The Simpsons.
South Park never fell off.
Simpsons have been irrelevant for almost 20 years.
Don’t forget the insurance companies.
In all seriousness, I think this sort of thing is really just another factor pushing to truly self-driving cars.
I foresee a huge drop in new car sales in conjunction with a huge spike in used/pre-owned car sales.
Every time something like this pops up, I’m reminded of a line from a silly book I read as a kid:
“When technology advances, the technology to outsmart it advances too.”
The people making these regulations don’t understand car people. That cute little mandatory device will be defeated, and a workaround will be sold, within the first year. The same thing happened with diesel trucks - EPA mandated emissions controls were built in the sloppiest possible fashion by engine manufacturers, and when these expensive trucks started needing thousands of dollars of work with fewer than 100,000 miles, people started disabling the emissions controls.
The same thing will happen with this regulation. It will be implemented in the cheapest, most failure prone way possible to save Ford or whoever $5 per unit. Drivers will start having problems with their whiz-bang fancy electronic DUI detector bricking their car, and boom, now there’s a market for disabling or removing the devices.
Also, just to attract more downvotes - there doesn’t seem to be any similar regulation being pushed for motorcycles. Consider a Goldwing instead of an Accord?
Duct tape over the sensors. This one isn’t even hard.
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Just leave the engine running when I go to the bar. If it’s already running then I don’t have a problem right?? Ha.
Don’t even need to go to the bar. Just get drunk while driving around the neighborhood until you pass out.
Wire around it. Still not hard.
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Sure. Just like the diesel modification wankers were pursued by the law. It didn’t stop them either.
A motorcycle has a higher chance of killing its rider rather than bystanders, when compared to cars.
I still won’t want to be hit by one though. I’ve been hit by a cyclist and that hurt enough.
Of course, yes. I’m just explaining why there’s more political motivation to not be hit by a car than a motorcycle.
Classic cars are about to be huge.
Dude, 13000 deaths are approximately 28% of the total traffic death toll for 2021. Even if I take the data for 2014, with the all-time low of 1.17 fatalities per 100m mi driven, that 28% is more than the 0.12 total fatalities in Germany (1.9 per bn km, 2018). Maybe the government could start fixing driver’s ed and make sure vehicles are actually road safe.
They won’t fix driver’s ed, nor ensure cars are safe because America is a car country with no public transport in most of it. So to get the plebeian workers to generate profit for the rich, they need them on the road driving to and from work an hour or two each day. To a German, our idiocy would be absolutely confounding. We don’t take driving nearly as serious as the Germans.
I’ve seen an old woman at a DMV fail the vision test, and the employee just pretended it didn’t matter and let her pass because without her driver’s license she couldn’t get around. We have cars on the road missing body parts, rusted through, warped brake rotors, seized calipers, damaged safety devices, they can be in any state of broken, and in most states, that’s perfectly fine to drive in.
This really weird grab for installing drunk driving interlock is just…that, weird. It seems like it is meant to target the “lower classes”, which is strange because it will drive up the cost of cars even further, and their prices have already ballooned in the last decade.
Distracted cell phone driving, which the NHTSA claims only accounted for 3,522 deaths in 2021, seems a much more prevalent (all day and night) issue in frequency, (although likely, not as fatal) as most people I see while driving around aren’t looking at the road, they’re just looking down at their phone. One person even told me they use their car’s lane departure correction feature as an ersatz autopilot, letting the car ping-pong down the road so they can focus on reading their phone.
Some sentences for driving under the influence require those convicted to install a breathalyzer in their cars that prevent them from starting the vehicle if alcohol is detected, though regulators said it’s unlikely future ubiquitous technology would be as intrusive as requiring a puff every time.
So instead they want to install cameras to continuously monitor the driver…
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