Drunk proof cars ..........AF

[tod evans]

New technology could put an end to drunken driving, officials say

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...b93_story.html

A technological breakthrough that could virtually eliminate the drunken driving that kills 10,000 Americans each year was announced Thursday by federal officials, who said it could begin appearing in cars in five years.

The new equipment won’t require a driver to blow into a tube, like the interlock devices some states require after drunken-driving convictions. Instead, either a passive set of breath sensors or touch-sensitive contact points on a starter button or gear shift would immediately register the level of alcohol in the bloodstream.

Drivers who registered above the legal limit wouldn’t be able to start the car.

“The message today is not ‘Can we do this?’ but ‘How soon can we do this?’ ” said Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). “It is a huge step forward.”

Eager to introduce an advance that would rival seat belts or air bags in saving lives, Rosekind said he would push to get the technology finalized, field tested and put into use before the five to eight years anticipated by researchers.

Though no cost-per-car estimate has been made, once the sensors go into general production it’s anticipated the cost will be equal to that of seat belts or air bags, about $150-$200 per vehicle.

Asked whether there would be a federal effort to mandate use of the devices in all new vehicles, Rosekind said he wasn’t sure that would be necessary.

“There’s not going to be a parent who isn’t going to want this in their child’s car,” he said. “There’s not going to be a business that’s not going to want this in their vehicles.”

NHTSA, safety advocates and automakers discussed whether the necessary technology was feasible for years. Researchers funded by auto manufacturers and federal safety regulators now have determined that it works.

[Too drunk? Your car won’t go along for the ride.]

They have developed passive sensors that detect how much a driver has had to drink, but are working on how best to package the sensors inside a vehicle. They have determined how to package touch-sensitive devices but still need to refine the technology to ensure accuracy.

“Touch-based could happen faster because we know how to package it,” said Rob Strassburger, head of the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety and vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group for the world’s major auto companies.

The advances that lead to Thursday’s announcement at NHTSA headquarters were made at a Boston laboratory run by Bud Zaouk.

“These devices have to be quick, accurate and easy to use for the automakers to put them on their platforms,” Zaouk said.

The goal is to produce a device that will react in less than a second and function without maintenance for at least 10 years or 157,000 miles. Sensors that detect alcohol levels in the air can react in less than a second after a driver gets into the vehicle.

The technology is an offshoot of advances in sensory detection since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. With sudden demand for bomb detection sensors, the ability of machines to scan people, packages and luggage for tiny trace elements has expanded exponentially.

The American Beverage Institute, a restaurant trade association, opposes the alcohol detection system.

“Today, NHTSA, MADD, and major auto makers presented what they claim will be a voluntary system ... a description that directly contradicts their own past statements,” the organization said in a statement.

Though Rosekind said he didn’t think it would be necessary to make the system mandatory, he did not preclude that option. MADD is unambiguous in its belief that the system belongs in all vehicles.

In 2013, 10,076 people were killed in car crashes involving drunk drivers, federal data shows. That was less than half the number of alcohol-related traffic deaths recorded in 1982, when 21,113 people were killed. In the past 30 years, 401,404 people have died in drunken-driving crashes.

Colleen Sheehey-Church, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, told an audience at NHTSA that included scores of her group’s members about the 2004 death of her son, who drowned in the back seat of a car driven into a river by a drunk driver.

“This is the future,” she said, gesturing toward a vehicle equipped with prototype detection gear, “when drunk drivers will be unable to drive their cars. If this technology was available in 2004, my son, Dustin, might be alive today.”

[Anti Federalist]

Yup.

And it will only be a matter of time before "geo-fencing" limits where you can go.

Drivers who registered above the legal limit wouldn’t be able to start the car.

This can't be done, as the "limits" are too fungible.

So if I wipe my hands with hand sanitizer the car shuts down?

What if I start drinking after starting?

Or get a sober person to do so?

[Anti Federalist]

Why The Young Hate Cars

http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/05/2...ung-hate-cars/

Well, maybe hate is too strong.

But they sure seem not to like them very much. As evidenced by the fact that a record-high percentage haven’t even got a driver’s license – and have no intention (according to what they tell researchers) of ever getting one.

How high?

Pushing 30 percent (and upticking each year) of present-day 19-year-olds.

As contrasted with almost no 19-year-olds back in the ’90s and before.

They are opting out.

Of the hassle.

Cars – and driving – are no longer a ticket to ride, for teenagers or otherwise. But especially for teenagers, who’ve been singled out for enhanced hassle – ostensibly because they are “inexperienced” and thus, apparently, to be be presumed dangerous (though this principle has yet to be applied in similar fashion to the experienced but aged). One wonders how they are to be expected to acquire experience when they are discouraged from becoming experienced.

A driver’s license has become the two-legged analog of the tags punched into the ears of cattle to keep track of them. Us (that is, adults), too. And driving has become so controlled, so micromanaged that it’s not unlike having to get formal, explicit (and perhaps soon, written) consent before each “base” is covered when you’re making out, as demanded by some 190 proof feministas.

In other words, not much fun.

Which is – typically – an issue for teenagers.

Teens are anxious above all to become adults, which entails being able to do as adults do. A driver’s license at 16 used to facilitate exactly that. Its possessor could drive anywhere, anytime – just like an adult. It was tangible, real-deal freedom. Not so now. Many states do not allow full-access driving privileges for years after a young person’s 16th birthday – in some cases, not until the age of 21. The license is highly conditional and extremely restrictive. Even more so than it is for the rest of us. The budding driver may not, for instance, drive with other teens in the car. Nor past a certain hour of the evening. In some states, teenaged drivers are required to have special plates affixed to their cars – which is an embarrassment. Not too far removed from requiring them to wear diapers – just in case.

Would you want to go through the hassle – and expense – of getting a government permission slip to drive if such conditions were imposed on you?

There is also the vicious “zero tolerance” nonsense that imposes disparate punishment on teens because they are teens. A person over the age of 21 is considered sober – or at least, not legally “drunk” – in most states until their blood alcohol level is at or above a certain arbitrary threshold. But if you are a teen driver less-than-21 years of age and the faintest whiff (literally) of alcohol is detected, you are considered legally “drunk” and can expect to be taken to the equivalent of Orwell’s Room 101.

Perhaps someone will explain how it can be that a 17-year-old with a 0.01 BAC is more “impaired” (let alone “drunk”) than a 22-year-old with a .08 BAC?

Mind, as with all “drunk” driving cases, the state need not present any evidence of actually impaired (let alone “drunk”) driving. It is simply presumed one is “impaired” (and “drunk”) according to the state’s arbitrary BAC charts – which in the case of teens (and the youngest 20-somethings, too) encompasses any BAC whatsoever, no how minute. And it need not even be blood alcohol content. If a teen hangs out with some friends – one of whom is drinking and accidentally spills some beer on him – the mere presence (detected by smell) of that beer on the clothes of the not-drinking driver is sufficient provocation to seize his already limited license and cart him off to the clink.

So much for equal protection of the laws – another 18th century concept that’s been thrown in the woods, along with the fourth amendment’s curious idea about citizens who’ve given no specific cause for suspicion not being subject to unreasonable searches and seizures – a burden that the courts have decreed far too onerous for the efficient enforcement of the laws.

So, to recap:

* Teenagers are denied full driving privileges for years – for the duration of their teenaged years, in many instances.

* Teenagers are subjected to public embarrassment via special license plates on their vehicles, the equivalent of being required to ride the short bus to school.

* Teenagers are treated unequally (more severely) by the law – subject to being punished for offenses that do not exist for (arbitrarily defined) “adult” drivers.

Add to this the Wet Nurse “parental control” electronics being fitted to new cars such as real-time monitoring of where, when – and how fast – a teenager drives (these technologies soon to be applied to the over-21s, too). Limits on speed, limits on radio volume. “Geo-fencing” (no, really). The list is long – and growing.

It does not take an academic study to suss out the implications. Teens are doing the only thing left to them:

They are opting out.

Just as many people have decided it’s no longer worth the hassle to fly. At least at home, one’s crotch is still sacrosanct. You only have to take off your shoes if you feel like it. And if someone tries to rifle your pockets or belongings you may (for now) defend your pockets and belongings from such assault.

Each year, it seems, the circle grows a little smaller.

Obtaining a driver’s license – and one’s first car – was once upon a time (and not all that long ago) perhaps the number one priority of every soon-to-be 16-year-old. After, of course, the other thing. Which was very much enabled or at least made more potentially realizable if one had one’s own set of wheels and the freedom to jump in with another teen, hopefully of the opposite sex – and take that first bite of adult life.

That’s now denied in the interests of “Keeping kids safe” … by preventing them from ever becoming adults.

It is useful training for the world that awaits them.

[Ronin Truth]

Well there's an interesting argument for self-driving cars.

[TheTexan]

Many lives will be saved.

[tod evans]

It does not take an academic study to suss out the implications. Teens are doing the only thing left to them:

My 10 y/o is learning to turn wrenches, he vacillates back-n-forth on wanting my ol' '56 or a hardtail for his 16th..

Either way he'll earn money and supply sweat equity to roll down the road with no 'puters and no seatbelts.....

[limequat]

My 10 y/o is learning to turn wrenches, he vacillates back-n-forth on wanting my ol' '56 or a hardtail for his 16th..

Either way he'll earn money and supply sweat equity to roll down the road with no 'puters and no seatbelts.....

Uh...what you got against seat belts?

[pcosmar]

Many lives will be saved.

Doubts.

Everyone dies.

[tod evans]

Uh...what you got against seat belts?

Government forcing folks in newer cars to wear them under threat of sanctions.

If son wants seatbelts we'll install 'em, I don't have 'em in the rig now and I won't while I'm driving it.

I do not like being told I have to do anything.......

[DamianTV]

Missed the words between the lines.

The Politicians are afraid us mundanes will kill them by us driving drunk, they could give a $#@! less about us.

[Anti Federalist]

Uh...what you got against seat belts?

Nothing in particular.

I wear them sometimes.

Mostly I do not.

I have a real problem with this:

[Anti Federalist]

Well there's an interesting argument for self-driving cars.

I know you're being satirical, but just so we're clear here:

This will not be permitted.

You will be required to retain a state of cat like readiness, and monitor the self driving system at all times.

In fact, "driving" will be even more monotonous and dull.

All the fun will have been taken out of it, but all the drudgery of constant monitoring (full attention and complete sobriety) will remain, as the self driving people pod moves you along approved routes, at approved speeds, and under full "real time" government surveillance.

[HVACTech]

did the US Constitution do this? is it to blame?

I know MANY here think that it IS to blame and is in fact the source of ALL this evil..

IF the US Constitution were restored, and rolled back to what we were given by our founders...
the FedGov would not have the power.

please note. the original (1787) US Constitution did NOT have any "amendments" until 1791.
there is a LARGE difference between the "amended" version, and the original.

[Mach]

The NEW Mach Sober Gloves!

Just don't burp after you get in the car...... oh wait, my kid spilled juice in the car, now it's fermenting in the sun and my car won't start..... NEWS: drunk criminal stops someone from escaping by just grabbing their steering wheel.... why would I have lots of alcohol residue all over me after leaving a drinking establishment.

http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECH...VIEW/dpcc.html

This crap is so stupid.

[Anti Federalist]

did the US Constitution do this? is it to blame?

IF the US Constitution were restored, and rolled back to what we were given by our founders...
the FedGov would not have the power.

Of course it would.

The constitution gave the feds the power to tax.

That's how all this road tyranny gets enacted.

It's not the feds doing it, they go to the states, and in their best Don Corleone voice, make them offers they cannot refuse: pass this, or we hold back fed road funding.

Forced blood draws, seat belt laws, drunk driving laws, REAL ID, and many more are the results of this federal extortion, all authorized by the constitution and perfectly legal, just ask the federal government's judges.

And precisely what the Anti Federalists warned about: that the states would become vassals of the fedgov under the 1787 CONstitution.

[Origanalist]

Though Rosekind said he didn’t think it would be necessary to make the system mandatory, he did not preclude that option.

Derp.....

[phill4paul]

Pod cars for pod people.

[Anti Federalist]

Pod cars for pod people.

And they will love it and embrace it.

[fisharmor]

A technological breakthrough that could virtually eliminate the drunken driving that kills 10,000 Americans each year

This is unmitigated horse$#@!.

It has to be.

30 years of hammering the populace on drunk driving, lowering standards, ruining lives ad nauseum, and still a full quarter of road fatalities are the direct result of drunk driving?
Even MADD would be given pause to consider this.

Their anti-drunk-driving shenanigans have been going on for longer than the War on Drugs has been going full force, and not only do we have pretty much everyone with a head not firmly implanted in his own ass openly doubting the wisdom of the WoD, but we have entire states that have begun ending it.
I can't believe that this 10,000 figure is still correct. Someone would have taken notice and called out the bull$#@! by now. (Someone who doesn't contribute to LRC, anyway.)

[Origanalist]

This is unmitigated horse$#@!.

It has to be.

30 years of hammering the populace on drunk driving, lowering standards, ruining lives ad nauseum, and still a full quarter of road fatalities are the direct result of drunk driving?
Even MADD would be given pause to consider this.

Their anti-drunk-driving shenanigans have been going on for longer than the War on Drugs has been going full force, and not only do we have pretty much everyone with a head not firmly implanted in his own ass openly doubting the wisdom of the WoD, but we have entire states that have begun ending it.
I can't believe that this 10,000 figure is still correct. Someone would have taken notice and called out the bull$#@! by now. (Someone who doesn't contribute to LRC, anyway.)[/COLOR]

Facts will never deter SJW,s or their cousins.

[Uriel999]

I thought the self driving cars are supposed to be the drunk proof ones...

[HVACTech]

Of course it would.

The constitution gave the feds the power to tax.

That's how all this road tyranny gets enacted.

It's not the feds doing it, they go to the states, and in their best Don Corleone voice, make them offers they cannot refuse: pass this, or we hold back fed road funding.

Forced blood draws, seat belt laws, drunk driving laws, REAL ID, and many more are the results of this federal extortion, all authorized by the constitution and perfectly legal, just ask the federal government's judges.

And precisely what the Anti Federalists warned about: that the states would become vassals of the fedgov under the 1787 CONstitution.

that $#@!ing Constitution of ours REALLY sucks!

for, it has given the whole $#@!ing WORLD these very same powers!

[phill4paul]

I thought the self driving cars are supposed to be the drunk proof ones...

Negative. The driver will have to remain sober at all times. Your horse may know the way to the stables but you are still in the saddle.

[Origanalist]

that $#@!ing Constitution of ours REALLY sucks!

for, it has given the whole $#@!ing WORLD these very same powers!

How so? The rest of the world doesn't have it, but they do the same.

[HVACTech]

How so? The rest of the world doesn't have it, but they do the same.

we sir, have the ONLY system of government.
that was EVER designed in the history of mankind. to limit the power and scope of the "government"

we can use it, or we can lose it.

AF thinks the very idea of "limited Government" is silly.

[Origanalist]

we sir, have the ONLY system of government.
that was EVER designed in the history of mankind. to limit the power and scope of the "government"

we can use it, or we can lose it.

AF thinks the very idea of "limited Government" is silly.

I think AF would pick up the torch and wave it if we had limited government. And as much as I respect your defense of our Constitution, because I believe if it was adhered to we would be in a a different universe, there can be no disputing the fact it has not limited government.

And his taking of the name Anti-Federalist does not put him in the category you would put him in. This was a extremely relevant debate as you well know.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/f...ntifederalist/

[Barrex]

we sir, have the ONLY system of government.
that was EVER designed in the history of mankind. to limit the power and scope of the "government"

we can use it, or we can lose it.

AF thinks the very idea of "limited Government" is silly.

State of Dubrovnik... and many others.

[Ronin Truth]

we sir, have the ONLY system of government.
that was EVER designed in the history of mankind. to limit the power and scope of the "government"

we can use it, or we can lose it.

AF thinks the very idea of "limited Government" is silly.

AF is correct, you are not. We lost it, even before we were born, and it ain't coming back.


"A limited government is a contradiction in terms." -- Robert LeFevre

[Ronin Truth]

I know you're being satirical, but just so we're clear here:

This will not be permitted.

You will be required to retain a state of cat like readiness, and monitor the self driving system at all times.

In fact, "driving" will be even more monotonous and dull.

All the fun will have been taken out of it, but all the drudgery of constant monitoring (full attention and complete sobriety) will remain, as the self driving people pod moves you along approved routes, at approved speeds, and under full "real time" government surveillance.

No satire intended.

No need for perfection, just somewhat better than the average driver will suffice for quite awhile. Improvements will continue.

25,000 years of tech progress is coming this century measured by the rate of tech progress in the last century.

It could get REALLY interesting, fairly soon.

[JK/SEA]

Many lives will be saved.

the job loss will cancel this out.