"43,000 people were killed last year, the greatest number in 16 years"
True, but there were also 250 billion more miles traveled than 16 years ago and a population of roughly 40 million more people. So though the raw number is higher, the traffic fatalities per mile traveled and per capita is actually lower than it was back then.
> The passage defining what Congress actually wants describes a system that can "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired; and... prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected." This is only half of the proposed system, though. The other half specifically references blood alcohol content, saying the technology must "passively and accurately detect whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration described in section 163(a) of title 23, United States Code; and... prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit is detected."
The first half is impossible in a car that has assistance features. You can't use machine learning to figure out if a driver using lane-assistance and radar cruise control on a highway is drunk because they're hardly driving at all. There are no inputs to analyse.
The second half is literally impossible. You cannot passively detect a driver's blood alcohol. You can actively detect it by having interlocks in the car but they have to be calibrated regularly and it's not passive at all.
I think the passive system will likely using steering wheel sensors and driving-facing cameras to detect if a person is paying attention similar to Teslas requirement for FSD
For the first half, it's possible by requiring manual drive for a few minutes before auto cruise. It's enough to handle most cases unless driver drink alcohol in the car.
A handful of years back the NHTSA announced that all new cars would have to have a vehicle to vehicle 5.7-5.9 GHz system for announcing vehicle position, velocity, and cryptographically signed ID. Luckily the dates just came and went and the manufacturers didn't do it. The NHTSA folded and eventually the FCC gave that ~hundreds MHz of 5 GHz band back to wifi.
Hopefully that's what will happen here. The NTSB only recommends things to the NHTSA. So this proposal hasn't even gotten as far as the above example.
>Assuming a final rule is issued in 2019, this would mean that the phase-in period would begin in 2021, and all vehicles subject to that final rule would be required to comply in 2023.
Yes, absolutely. I often think about whether we should just go to the natural logical conclusion. Using GPS and speed data to automatically fine you if you speed and deduct from your linked bank account - you can contest this but you must pay first.
I dislike cameras as it feels like you're constantly performing and if you slip up, you don't get to learn, instead your mistake is archived and put up for others to scrutinize.
I get that we, as humans, enjoy documenting our world, but the idea a spy which will no doubt store data that is accessible either remotely or locally with the right tool, is now and has become so pervasive will probably be considered one of the most grotesque things future societies will look back on and think we were insane for ever allowing. So much of our history is lost to the ages, and frankly, it's best it stays that way.
The printers would run out of paper and would be distracting. More likely the fine would be auto-deducted from the soon to be government run blockchain that is shimmed into all the banks we use. Also more likely the car would pull over and refuse to let people out until the police arrive.
Here [1] is a video Utopia that describes our potential future.
Once again, the actions of a few are hurting everyone else. Why not target the few?
There's a solid connection between DUI enforcement and reduction in deaths. We've all heard of crashes involving someone with multiple DUI arrests. These offenders need identifying, help, supervision, and maybe removing their driving privileges.
Perhaps if our media wasn't constantly peppering people with advertisements about alcohol and we weren't constantly trying to equate alcohol with social status, things here might be a whole lot different. But no, we sell t-shirts with phrases like "Chardonnay all Day" and "mommy needs wine" and have beer ads equating drinking with a good happy life, and then we wonder why people are experiencing alcoholism at a skyrocketing rate.
instead a Gov agency says that we all now need to jump through a hoop because of drunk drivers.
Would it not be way more useful if the NTSB focused on road design? As someone from Europe I oftentimes see very wide roads in the USA with a maximum speed of 15 mph or something, their design does not stop one from driving 50+ mph, however. In Europe, you often see that if there's a lower maximum speed, the width of the road is reduced, and obstacles are placed to ensure you actually can't drive significantly faster than allowed.
Also, smaller streets will typically lead to less distracted drivers, because it requires a certain level of concentration to navigate these streets.
Oh, and something about enormous SUV's that won't make traffic any safer...
When most cars have auto braking, you'll just see a new car, walk out, it will immediately stop and any car without tech in it will slam in to the back of the new car. So there will soon be no old cars left.
To be honest, you would solve so many of these DUI problems by just adding a driver's license interlock that requires the person to be a licensed driver to move the vehicle. So many people are driving on suspended licenses right now. Usually without registration or insurance. It would be cool to be able to use my DL to unlock and drive my car anyhow.
However, the obvious solution is to make it so people DON'T NEED A CAR TO DO EVERYTHING! Public transportation, cycling infra, pedestrian friendly design! All of these reduce drunk driving.
An amusing idea would be having bars check all IDs on entry/exit, perhaps some automated tech here, and then it locks the license from driving for x hours.
They're also recommending speed limiters that essentially force you to follow the limits.
I wonder if we'd see speed limits increase if everyone followed them as-posted? Because right now there seems to be this assumption from both sides that everyone is speeding, so they post 70 because they want 80, or 25 because they want 30, etc.
While DUI is a legitimate problem, it isn't clear to me though what exactly the NTSB is proposing here? They have those "breathe into" systems (interlocks), but they have hygiene and maintenance limitations. Unclear how driver monitoring systems can determine if someone is DUI (in particular when you look at edge cases, like disabled drivers that move atypically while still be authorized to drive).
PS - I suspect, but cannot show data, that existing upcoming safety technology may decrease DUI caused fatalities in particular "driverless" automations like lane centering, automatic lane-changes, and autonomous navigation. While I don't consider this technology mature, it may still be safer than an inebriated driver.
This has no chance of being extended to not allow you to drive because your social score has dropped below a threshold.
I don’t need or want life management built into my vehicle. I don’t want Minority Report inspired crime prevention. A government camera pointed directly at me isn’t even a 1984 metaphor anymore. The management class is literally saying that’s what they want to do - they don’t even pretend to hide it.
Fantastic. This is a huge win for everybody. After midnight more than 1 in 8 drivers on the road are legally intoxicated (in the US). Driving is a liberty, not a right.
I can understand why this would be limited to alcohol (at least starting out) as alcohol leaves the body rapidly and the diminished capacity leaves with the alcohol. Eventually I would like to see this applied to a variety of intoxicants.
So-called "self-driving" systems, or the more-accurately-named lane-keeping and distance-keeping systems, may or may not be safer than human drivers driving equivalent cars, but they are much safer than alcohol-impaired drivers.
The idea of having to blow into a tube every time I start my car seems outrageous, of course, but so many deaths every year in the US are due to alcohol-impaired driving that I'd almost be willing to support it.
Of course, given that they're only calling for new cars to be so equipped, we'd be looking at a very long period of time in which people prone to driving under the influence would refuse to buy newer cars, justifying it by saying that the systems don't understand how their alcohol tolerance works.
Why don't we try actively enforcing and severely punishing drunk drivers instead of giving them back their licenses after a slap on the wrist?
Why is the default here to go the overcomplicated solution and reduce everyone's privacy by pointing cameras at them in their personal vehicles instead? This smacks of the same uninformed decision making that leads to some startup reinventing the bus as an idea for an app every other year.
Furthermore it continues to ignore any solution that hinges on addressing the real issue (alcohol abuse) and burdens the millions of Americans that don't even drink.
Instead of mostly attempting symptom mitigation, wouldn't it be a much better improvement for society if the relation (some?) Americans have with alcohol was repaired?
This seems akin to trying to change our nations attitude towards guns and semi automatic weapons instead of improving gun control legislation. According to the 2020 figures in the article > 10,000 people are dying every year from alcohol-related accidents. If there’s something tangible that can be done to reduce that death count, I’m all for it. As wonderful as it would be to reform the national attitude towards alcohol and excessive drinking, the alcohol lobby and our stubbornness as a culture would probably make it very challenging to effect any meaningful change. It’ll be interesting to see how far this gets from a technical standpoint and, if it does actually make it into new vehicles, how many work-arounds people come up with.
16 year olds can openly buy beer in the supermarket and consume it on their way home from school.
Driving licenses start at age 18, but there's two years of special probation that punish DUIs more extensively (and have a significantly lower limit). Police enforcement of these driving rules at times when young people celebrate is high.
This also means they do not start binge-drinking AFTER they got their driving license, they know their limits by then.
Doesn't mean we don't have drunk drivers, but maybe less drunk ones. We've had around 13500 alcohol-induced accidents with human casualties (of 306000 altogether) in 2021, but only about 2600 deaths overall, so probably less than 300 alcohol-related deaths in traffic.
Like it or not (I’m ambivalent) this is a concrete measure that would presumably have measurable effects. What’s the equivalent for your proposed approach?
We can implement breathalyzers in cars right now, today. There are no serious hurdles in the way and it would make driving while drunk a little harder.
How exactly do we convince an entire country be more responsible with alcohol?
Wait until they use the driver-facing cameras to (try to) detect cannabis intoxication and the cameras think everyone with squinting eyes is intoxicated.
[+] [-] pcaharrier|3 years ago|reply
True, but there were also 250 billion more miles traveled than 16 years ago and a population of roughly 40 million more people. So though the raw number is higher, the traffic fatalities per mile traveled and per capita is actually lower than it was back then.
[+] [-] StrictDabbler|3 years ago|reply
> The passage defining what Congress actually wants describes a system that can "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired; and... prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected." This is only half of the proposed system, though. The other half specifically references blood alcohol content, saying the technology must "passively and accurately detect whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration described in section 163(a) of title 23, United States Code; and... prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit is detected."
The first half is impossible in a car that has assistance features. You can't use machine learning to figure out if a driver using lane-assistance and radar cruise control on a highway is drunk because they're hardly driving at all. There are no inputs to analyse.
The second half is literally impossible. You cannot passively detect a driver's blood alcohol. You can actively detect it by having interlocks in the car but they have to be calibrated regularly and it's not passive at all.
This is a Timmy Turner wish, not a law.
[+] [-] scottshamus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fomine3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superkuh|3 years ago|reply
Hopefully that's what will happen here. The NTSB only recommends things to the NHTSA. So this proposal hasn't even gotten as far as the above example.
[+] [-] superkuh|3 years ago|reply
https://jalopnik.com/self-driving-car-tech-forgotten-by-auto...
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-01-12/pdf/2016-31059.p...
>Assuming a final rule is issued in 2019, this would mean that the phase-in period would begin in 2021, and all vehicles subject to that final rule would be required to comply in 2023.
See also, https://www.electronicdesign.com/blogs/contributed-blogs/arc... And here's is my 2017 post on alt.cyberpunk about the ruling and a link to an articles about it back then, https://groups.google.com/g/alt.cyberpunk/c/YpRasEtoOwA , https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/06/21/killing-car-privacy... and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/danger-ahead-governmen...
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] theknocker|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ozfive|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madamelic|3 years ago|reply
Can't wait until they install a printer so they can just print the tickets out right into my car.
[+] [-] aboringusername|3 years ago|reply
I dislike cameras as it feels like you're constantly performing and if you slip up, you don't get to learn, instead your mistake is archived and put up for others to scrutinize.
I get that we, as humans, enjoy documenting our world, but the idea a spy which will no doubt store data that is accessible either remotely or locally with the right tool, is now and has become so pervasive will probably be considered one of the most grotesque things future societies will look back on and think we were insane for ever allowing. So much of our history is lost to the ages, and frankly, it's best it stays that way.
[+] [-] msh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidanay|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fnord123|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LinuxBender|3 years ago|reply
Here [1] is a video Utopia that describes our potential future.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJYaXy5mmA8 [video]
[+] [-] imglorp|3 years ago|reply
There's a solid connection between DUI enforcement and reduction in deaths. We've all heard of crashes involving someone with multiple DUI arrests. These offenders need identifying, help, supervision, and maybe removing their driving privileges.
https://www.safehome.org/resources/dui-statistics/
[+] [-] jrnichols|3 years ago|reply
instead a Gov agency says that we all now need to jump through a hoop because of drunk drivers.
Great. Just great.
[+] [-] Freeaqingme|3 years ago|reply
Also, smaller streets will typically lead to less distracted drivers, because it requires a certain level of concentration to navigate these streets.
Oh, and something about enormous SUV's that won't make traffic any safer...
[+] [-] PostOnce|3 years ago|reply
Or maybe we should just test for HCG along with alcohol and report HCG drops to the govt.
[+] [-] h2odragon|3 years ago|reply
Theme music: "Red Barchetta" by Rush
[+] [-] fdewrewrewf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erellsworth|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gigachad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foxyv|3 years ago|reply
However, the obvious solution is to make it so people DON'T NEED A CAR TO DO EVERYTHING! Public transportation, cycling infra, pedestrian friendly design! All of these reduce drunk driving.
[+] [-] Gigachad|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Someone1234|3 years ago|reply
I wonder if we'd see speed limits increase if everyone followed them as-posted? Because right now there seems to be this assumption from both sides that everyone is speeding, so they post 70 because they want 80, or 25 because they want 30, etc.
While DUI is a legitimate problem, it isn't clear to me though what exactly the NTSB is proposing here? They have those "breathe into" systems (interlocks), but they have hygiene and maintenance limitations. Unclear how driver monitoring systems can determine if someone is DUI (in particular when you look at edge cases, like disabled drivers that move atypically while still be authorized to drive).
PS - I suspect, but cannot show data, that existing upcoming safety technology may decrease DUI caused fatalities in particular "driverless" automations like lane centering, automatic lane-changes, and autonomous navigation. While I don't consider this technology mature, it may still be safer than an inebriated driver.
[+] [-] nemo44x|3 years ago|reply
I don’t need or want life management built into my vehicle. I don’t want Minority Report inspired crime prevention. A government camera pointed directly at me isn’t even a 1984 metaphor anymore. The management class is literally saying that’s what they want to do - they don’t even pretend to hide it.
[+] [-] throwaway0asd|3 years ago|reply
I can understand why this would be limited to alcohol (at least starting out) as alcohol leaves the body rapidly and the diminished capacity leaves with the alcohol. Eventually I would like to see this applied to a variety of intoxicants.
[+] [-] pwinnski|3 years ago|reply
The idea of having to blow into a tube every time I start my car seems outrageous, of course, but so many deaths every year in the US are due to alcohol-impaired driving that I'd almost be willing to support it.
Of course, given that they're only calling for new cars to be so equipped, we'd be looking at a very long period of time in which people prone to driving under the influence would refuse to buy newer cars, justifying it by saying that the systems don't understand how their alcohol tolerance works.
[+] [-] devmor|3 years ago|reply
Why is the default here to go the overcomplicated solution and reduce everyone's privacy by pointing cameras at them in their personal vehicles instead? This smacks of the same uninformed decision making that leads to some startup reinventing the bus as an idea for an app every other year.
Furthermore it continues to ignore any solution that hinges on addressing the real issue (alcohol abuse) and burdens the millions of Americans that don't even drink.
[+] [-] prirun|3 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32902090
[+] [-] oneplane|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eluketronic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DocTomoe|3 years ago|reply
16 year olds can openly buy beer in the supermarket and consume it on their way home from school.
Driving licenses start at age 18, but there's two years of special probation that punish DUIs more extensively (and have a significantly lower limit). Police enforcement of these driving rules at times when young people celebrate is high.
This also means they do not start binge-drinking AFTER they got their driving license, they know their limits by then.
Doesn't mean we don't have drunk drivers, but maybe less drunk ones. We've had around 13500 alcohol-induced accidents with human casualties (of 306000 altogether) in 2021, but only about 2600 deaths overall, so probably less than 300 alcohol-related deaths in traffic.
[+] [-] mrosett|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] micromacrofoot|3 years ago|reply
How exactly do we convince an entire country be more responsible with alcohol?
[+] [-] 4oo4|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madamelic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MerelyMortal|3 years ago|reply
Here are more examples:
https://www.columbusdefensefirm.com/causes-false-positive-br...
[+] [-] noSyncCloud|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TotoHorner|3 years ago|reply
Imagine the compliance.
[+] [-] quantified|3 years ago|reply
Suppose it decides you're intoxicated after you've hit highway speed?
Will it store its findings, to be retrieved later?