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It Was Fun While It Lasted: New Cars to Be Drunk Proof


Doc Reeves

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Im mostly worried about the DUI industry and how cities will figure out what petty criminal group to milk for money next

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/31/1065246981/what-if-cars-could-stop-you-from-driving-drunk-a-peek-at-the-latest-tech?ft=nprml&f=1065246981

 

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It's an idea that could mark a pretty revolutionary change for vehicle safety: What if our cars could prevent drunk driving?

The recent infrastructure law included a provision mandating that, starting in a few years, all new cars must include some sort of technology to detect and prevent drunk driving.

Some companies were already racing to figure out how to do this. Now, it's going to be required. 

"I actually think this particular technology could save more lives than airbags," says David Harkey, the president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. "We're talking about more than 10,000 people that are losing their lives annually as a result of alcohol-impaired driving in the country." 

So how might this technology actually work? 

The new law doesn't specify, but there are a few approaches that been explored in recent years. They fall in two main categories: systems that measure your blood alcohol level while you do normal driving tasks, and cameras that watch for tell-tale signs of drunkenness. 

Here's what to know about each of them, and how soon they might become reality.………

 

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1 minute ago, ONE YARD said:

hate this idea and i never drive after drinking a single alcoholic beverage. 

 

all those technology examples are just leaving the door open for abuse / confusion. 

 

passively sampling air?  what if you shithead passenger is shit faced? what if someone spilt beer on you earlier?

cameras looking for signs of drunkness?   what if you are a stroke survived or have random face / eye issue?  hell, it’s been proven that facial recognition has issues with BIPOCs.  do you really trust it not to passively discriminate?  

 

what if it fucks up in an emergency situation?  do you really want your car not staring due to thinking you a drunk while your new born is having medical emergency?

It's not about saving lives just another data collection racket.

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27 minutes ago, ONE YARD said:

hate this idea and i never drive after drinking a single alcoholic beverage. 

(riiiiight)

all those technology examples are just leaving the door open for abuse / confusion. 

(things are confusing when your shitfaced)

passively sampling air?  what if you shithead passenger is shit faced? what if someone spilt beer on you earlier?

(what if a beer truck wrecked on I-35?)

cameras looking for signs of drunkness?   what if you are a stroke survivor or have random face / eye issue?  hell, it’s been proven that facial recognition has issues with BIPOCs.  do you really trust it not to passively discriminate?  

(if you have eye issues, should you be driving?)

what if it fucks up in an emergency situation?  do you really want your car not staring due to thinking you a drunk while your new born is having medical emergency?

(what if it stops a shitfaced aggy from plowing head on into a family of 5?)

what ifs are fun

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1 hour ago, ONE YARD said:

hate this idea and i never drive after drinking a single alcoholic beverage. 

 

all those technology examples are just leaving the door open for abuse / confusion. 

 

passively sampling air?  what if you shithead passenger is shit faced? what if someone spilt beer on you earlier?

cameras looking for signs of drunkness?   what if you are a stroke survivor or have random face / eye issue?  hell, it’s been proven that facial recognition has issues with BIPOCs.  do you really trust it not to passively discriminate?  

 

what if it fucks up in an emergency situation?  do you really want your car not staring due to thinking you a drunk while your new born is having medical emergency?

I don’t think we’re far off from AI technology being able to make the correct determination in all those situations. Which is both good & scary. 

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11 minutes ago, Helobious said:

I don’t think we’re far off from AI technology being able to make the correct determination in all those situations. Which is both good & scary. 

What would be interesting is if the technology determined someone was impaired and then the result was a requirement that the car be self driving to drive the person to their destination. 

So if determined to be impaired you could not choose to manually drive, but the car could only be "driven" through self driving technology.   This would cover drinking, texting etc.

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Not a fan. Make DUIs more punitive (they should be) or figure out how to enforce them more efficiently. Don't continue to chip away at individual's liberties. How is it supposed to tell between someone that's had two beers and three beers? Is the idea to move towards zero tolerance for all adults? That seems like a can of worms. As does having robots determine what human beings are and aren't allowed to do. 

Also - what are they going to do? Retroengineer 500 million vehicles? Drunks will just not buy new cars. 

Edited by ztejas
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17 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Not a fan. Make DUIs more punitive (they should be) or figure out how to enforce them more efficiently. Don't continue to chip away at individual's liberties. How is it supposed to tell between someone that's had two beers and three beers? Is the idea to move towards zero tolerance for all adults? That seems like a can of worms. As does having robots determine what human beings are and aren't allowed to do. 

Also - what are they going to do? Retroengineer 500 million vehicles? Drunks will just not buy new cars. 

Somebody will make a chip that overrides the system.

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1 hour ago, Helobious said:

I don’t think we’re far off from AI technology being able to make the correct determination in all those situations. Which is both good & scary. 

A lot like self driving cars, near-term AI technology will get it right 99.9% of the time.  On the surface that seems like a high bar, but it's not....the real world is messy.     It would be an 'edge condition' day when the shit hits the fan that AI would decide not to start the car... Something like a beat up wife fleeing an abusive husband but the car won't start because she seems 'impaired'

 

Before the deadline for this arrives, this will be either thrown out by the courts or removed by congress.    

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10 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

A lot like self driving cars, near-term AI technology will get it right 99.9% of the time.  On the surface that seems like a high bar, but it's not....the real world is messy.     It would be an 'edge condition' day when the shit hits the fan that AI would decide not to start the car... Something like a beat up wife fleeing an abusive husband but the car won't start because she seems 'impaired'

 

Before the deadline for this arrives, this will be either thrown out by the courts or removed by congress.    

Winner Dave GIF by Barstool Sports

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1 hour ago, ztejas said:

Not a fan. Make DUIs more punitive (they should be) or figure out how to enforce them more efficiently. Don't continue to chip away at individual's liberties. How is it supposed to tell between someone that's had two beers and three beers? Is the idea to move towards zero tolerance for all adults? That seems like a can of worms. As does having robots determine what human beings are and aren't allowed to do. 

Also - what are they going to do? Retroengineer 500 million vehicles? Drunks will just not buy new cars. 

Didn’t realize you had a constitutional right to drive drunk. Or even to drive a car at all.

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44 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

1974 - last of the Bs with chrome grill & bumpers. Sold it to a Dallas collector in 2000 with 44,000 miles on the clock for $6,000.

Nice.

My Dad had a 1961 Midget when we lived in England in the late 70s.  Then got a 1972 Midget in the early 80s after we moved to SA.  Learned to drive stick shift in that.

Figured it was around that year since I knew MG started going away from chrome bumpers after that - my Dad's '72 had full chrome.

Wonder what my Dad got when he sold his...

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1 hour ago, 4doorsMoreWhores said:

The general premise for this seems like a good idea but the feasibility aspect will be a problem. Too many scenarios where this could lead to someone being stranded by a vehicle that won't start in an emergency situation 

Maybe they put in a manual override but if you activate it, it will alert the police to your location.  I assume cars with this feature would get a discount on their insurance.

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6 hours ago, ztejas said:

Not a fan. Make DUIs more punitive (they should be) or figure out how to enforce them more efficiently. Don't continue to chip away at individual's liberties. How is it supposed to tell between someone that's had two beers and three beers? Is the idea to move towards zero tolerance for all adults? That seems like a can of worms. As does having robots determine what human beings are and aren't allowed to do. 

Also - what are they going to do? Retroengineer 500 million vehicles? Drunks will just not buy new cars. 

Making DUIs more punitive is a horrible idea. Canada has much more punitive DUI laws and my cousin, a professional with 2 kids, with no record and 1 stop where he blew over 0.8 was sweating going to prison for 1 year. He spent almost 2 years and almost 6 figures and was lucky as fuck to do a couple of months of jail time and probation. That’s a joke and that’s what the MADD zealots would like.

As Americans we (historically - COVID seems to have changed things) tolerate and are willing to live with greater risks than the Euros or Canadians. One of those risks is greater incidence of drunk driving. This is a big country, where except in 3 cities, people who aren’t dirt poor drive to work and use cars  everyday for everything. Alternative forms of transit, before Uber at least, were inconvenient and not very reliable. 

I haven’t even gotten to the number of lives would be ruined by even more punitive DUI laws and sentences. Getting pulled over 1 time blowing drunk should never be jail time worthy unless some egregious and horrific deaths occur. Suspended sentence or deferred adjudication. Think about what a career killer it would be to have a DUI conviction with the background checks you have to go through. Are you willing to have millions of talented people shut out of good jobs - that’s what happens in a professional setting if you have a record.  0.8-1.0 BAC is not some clear line, it is a judgment call to get behind the wheel - which ALL of us have done. Some unlucky bastard who rolled the dice and got unlucky should not carry the sins of all of us who have done the same. The lives destroyed would not be worth it - I’d rather have our current system and can live with more drunks on the road.
 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Helobious said:

Didn’t realize you had a constitutional right to drive drunk. Or even to drive a car at all.

You unsurprisingly completely missed the point of my post. I'm not advocating for the right to drive drunk. I'm making the point that having robots determine what humans are and aren't allowed to do based on sometimes subjective biometric data is not an idea I'm particularly comfortable with. 

13 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

Making DUIs more punitive is a horrible idea. Canada has much more punitive DUI laws and my cousin, a professional with 2 kids, with no record and 1 stop where he blew over 0.8 was sweating going to prison for 1 year. He spent almost 2 years and almost 6 figures and was lucky as fuck to do a couple of months of jail time and probation.

What are Canada's per-capita statistics for drunk-driving fatalities compared to the US? I'm guessing it's less. 

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1 minute ago, ztejas said:

You unsurprisingly completely missed the point of my post. I'm not advocating for the right to drive drunk. I'm making the point that having robots determine what humans are and aren't allowed to do based on sometimes subjective biometric data is not an idea I'm particularly comfortable with. 

What are Canada's per-capita statistics for drunk-driving fatalities compared to the US? I'm guessing it's less. 

If we have completely self-driving cars, then I don’t have a problem with only autopilot being an option. You said we should make our laws more punitive. I disagree and stated the reasons why based on the reality of our situation as a country. Our cities aren’t like Amsterdam where you can get drunk or high and just stumble home in a pleasant, human scale walkable city.

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14 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

You said we should make our laws more punitive.

I actually didn't say that. I said that I'd like to see that happen before we do whatever is being outlined in this automaker proposal. 

At least - that's what I meant. I now see that it may not have been clear what I was advocating for. I think generally the structure is okay as is - although it could probably stand to be a little more punitive in certain cases. 

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25 minutes ago, ztejas said:

You unsurprisingly completely missed the point of my post. I'm not advocating for the right to drive drunk. I'm making the point that having robots determine what humans are and aren't allowed to do based on sometimes subjective biometric data is not an idea I'm particularly comfortable with. 

What are Canada's per-capita statistics for drunk-driving fatalities compared to the US? I'm guessing it's less. 

I've heard you can't even enter Canada with a dui conviction. Anybody know if that's true?

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4 minutes ago, 4doorsMoreWhores said:

I've heard you can't even enter Canada with a dui conviction. Anybody know if that's true?

Well... that might be right but that's a different matter entirely. I'm not saying Canada does or has ever done it right when it comes to anything. Just saying I bet they have less drunk driving accidents with more punitive sentencing. i.e. if you want to reduce those incidents in the US maybe try something like that instead of having machines start enforcing the law.

(Think about how bullshit red light cameras are and how many issues they've caused)

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9 minutes ago, 4doorsMoreWhores said:

I've heard you can't even enter Canada with a dui conviction. Anybody know if that's true?

That’s absolutely true. My girlfriend and I were in Seattle and wanted to go up to Vancouver. We couldn’t because she had a DUI. Ridiculous. Yes I’m sure Canada has lower drunk driving accidents but the societal cost such laws would have here would be much worse than any benefits gained. It would hit minorities and poor especially hard because they get pulled over more 

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10 minutes ago, 4doorsMoreWhores said:

I've heard you can't even enter Canada with a dui conviction. Anybody know if that's true?

It is correct.  Or any other felony or misdemeanor not a traffic ticket. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/inadmissibility/overcome-criminal-convictions.html

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