Posted on 12/06/2021 6:37:43 AM PST by george76
Buried deep within the massive infrastructure legislation recently signed by resident Joe Biden is a little-noticed “safety” measure that will take effect in five years. Marketed to Congress as a benign tool to help prevent drunk driving, the measure will mandate that automobile manufacturers build into every car what amounts to a “vehicle kill switch.”
As has become standard for legislative mandates passed by Congress, this measure is disturbingly short on details. What we do know is that the “safety” device must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”
Everything about this mandatory measure should set off red flares.
First, use of the word “passively” suggests the system will always be on and constantly monitoring the vehicle. Secondly, the system must connect to the vehicle’s operational controls, so as to disable the vehicle either before driving or during, when impairment is detected. Thirdly, it will be an “open” system, or at least one with a backdoor, meaning authorized (or unauthorized) third-parties can remotely access the system’s data at any time.
This is a privacy disaster in the making, and the fact that the provision made it through the Congress reveals — yet again — how little its members care about the privacy of their constituents.
The lack of ultimate control over one’s vehicle presents numerous and extremely serious safety issues; issues that should have been obvious to Members of Congress before they voted on the measure.
For example, what if a driver is not drunk, but sleepy, and the car forces itself to the side of the road before the driver can find a safe place to pull over and rest? Considering that there are no realistic mechanisms to immediately challenge or stop the car from being disabled, drivers will be forced into dangerous situations without their consent or control.
The choice as to whether a vehicle can or cannot be driven — for vehicles built after 2026 — will rest in the hands of an algorithm over which the car’s owner or driver have neither knowledge nor control.
If that is not reason enough for concern, there are serious legal issues with this mandate. Other vehicle-related enforcement methods used by the Nanny State, such as traffic cameras and license plate readers, have long presented constitutional problems; notably with the 5th Amendment’s right to not self-incriminate, and the 6th Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser.
The same constitutional issues abound with this new technology, but with the added confusion surrounding what Congress even means by “impaired driving.” Does it mean legally drunk, or perhaps under the limit but still “impaired” to a degree? Would police be summoned automatically by the system in order to make that determination? These are questions that should have been addressed openly and thoroughly during the legislative process, not left to later, back-room negotiations between interested parties other than individual car buyers – manufacturers, regulators, insurance companies and law enforcement.
Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, there also is no detail in the legislation about who would have access to the data collected and stored by the system. Could it be used by police, and could they access this information without a warrant? What about insurance companies, eager to know with what frequency their customers drove after drinking alcohol, even if it was below the legal limit? Such a trove of data presents a lucrative prize to all manner of public and private entities (including hackers), none of which have our best interests at heart.
Adding what amounts to a mandatory, backdoor government “kill switch” to cars is not only a violation of our constitutional rights, but an affront to what is — or used to be — an essential element of our national character. Unless this regulatory mandate is not quickly removed or defanged by way of an appropriations rider preventing its implementation, the freedom of the open road that individual car ownership brought to the American Dream, will be but another vague memory of an era no longer to be enjoyed by future generations.
so, put a kill switch in cars, and put them on the internet-of-things.
What could go wrong?
Everything about this government should set off red flares. And I do mean RED!!! like in Communist dictatorship.
Governing while impaired isn’t a problem though.
How about a texting kill switch?
Also, nothing prevents people who post the wrong things or challenge their school board or who are unvaccinated from having their vehicles disabled remotely.
My house will have no car that has that feature. We’re old enough to easily pull that off.
Piece by piece freedom is dying. I’m glad I’m old.
“We don’t like what you posted on Twitter. So, now your car doesn’t work. Guess you can’t go to work for awhile. Gee, hope you don’t get fired. Please use Twitter responsibly.”
Cops have used Onstar to disable vehicles in a chase. Mandating this technology is wrong in my book, and will only drive up the price of older cars and resto-mods.
If we had this LAW sooner and Made it Mandatory for ALL Public Employee’s Nationwide to have these disabling devices ion EVERY Vehicle they Use Own or are Traveling in, Mary Jo Kopechne would be alive today
A brilliant red Barchetta from a better vanished time. Their plans are so incredibly long-term, they were crushing cars in 2009 in preparation for this.
blame. blame. blame.
the GOP voted for it.
the GOP KNOWINGLY voted for it.
the GOP put Xiden in.
the GOP attacked — and still does — President TRUMP.
Screw the GOP for RomneyCARE/ObamaCARE, funding IRAN,
letting CHINA take America, and now this.
“The choice as to whether a vehicle can or cannot be driven.... will rest in the hands of an algorithm over which the car’s owner or driver have neither knowledge nor control”
Something Ford owners have dealt with for 40 years.
Around 15 years ago, I was shown a little Dutch-innovator box that you’d hook up to your car and remove mileage off the car. The guy would do this for roughly $50....to make an older used car appealing with lesser mileage showing.
This kill-switch chatter? Once it’s delivered...within a week, some guy will have the kill-switch capability figured out and probably for $50...help you remove the functionality.
p
We need a law putting kill switches on ballot scanning machines that kick in at a minute past midnight
Rapists will now carry a small bottle of booze to throw into victims cars if they attempt to get away in one.
The truck is great....all manual with stick shift and no power brakes...mechanical linkage to the clutch....only thing automatic is when you turn the ignition key....the motor starts.
I have a lane control feature on my 2021 Camry which constantly chirps and corrects my lane alignment because I tend to drift out of perfect alignment as I am driving. Am I going to be stranded 20 miles from home at 11:00 at night sometime in the future?
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