Can Technology Help Reduce Drunk-Driving Deaths? (msn.com) 155
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Wall Street Journal:
Drunken-driving deaths in the U.S. have risen to levels not seen in nearly two decades, federal data show, a major setback to long-running road-safety efforts. At the same time, arrests for driving under the influence have plummeted, as police grapple with challenges like hiring woes and heightened concern around traffic stops... About 13,500 people died in alcohol impairment-related crashes in 2022, according to data released in April by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That is 33% above 2019's toll and on par with 2021's. The last time so many people died as a result of accidents involving intoxicated drivers was in 2006.
That's still down from the early 1980s, when America was seeing over 20,000 drunk-driving deaths a year, according to the article. "By 2010, that number had fallen to around 10,000 thanks to high-profile public-education campaigns by groups like MADD, tougher laws, and aggressive enforcement that included sobriety checkpoints and typically yielded well over a million DUI arrests annually."
But some hope to solve the problem using technology: Many activists and policymakers are banking on the promise of built-in devices to prevent a car from starting if the driver is intoxicated, either by analyzing a driver's exhaled breath or using skin sensors to gauge the blood-alcohol level. NHTSA issued a notice in December that it said lays the groundwork for potential alcohol-impairment detection technology standards in all new cars "when the technology is mature."
And Glenn Davis, who manages Colorado's highway-safety office, "pointed to Colorado's extensive use of ignition interlock systems that require people convicted of DUI to blow into a tube to verify they are sober in order for their car to start. He said the office promotes nondriving options such as Lyft and Uber."
That's still down from the early 1980s, when America was seeing over 20,000 drunk-driving deaths a year, according to the article. "By 2010, that number had fallen to around 10,000 thanks to high-profile public-education campaigns by groups like MADD, tougher laws, and aggressive enforcement that included sobriety checkpoints and typically yielded well over a million DUI arrests annually."
But some hope to solve the problem using technology: Many activists and policymakers are banking on the promise of built-in devices to prevent a car from starting if the driver is intoxicated, either by analyzing a driver's exhaled breath or using skin sensors to gauge the blood-alcohol level. NHTSA issued a notice in December that it said lays the groundwork for potential alcohol-impairment detection technology standards in all new cars "when the technology is mature."
And Glenn Davis, who manages Colorado's highway-safety office, "pointed to Colorado's extensive use of ignition interlock systems that require people convicted of DUI to blow into a tube to verify they are sober in order for their car to start. He said the office promotes nondriving options such as Lyft and Uber."
Sure, self driving cars. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sure, self driving cars. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sure, self driving cars. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sure, self driving cars. (Score:4, Informative)
Overall, it's better to encourage healthier behaviour, e.g. reduce alcohol consumption in general & plan to attend social occasions with getting home in mind, i.e. just take a taxi/bus/whatever there in the first place. If you live in a city with decent transport infrastructure this becomes much less of an issue. Where I am, I can walk everywhere I want to go out to in the afternoon, evening, at night, but that's Yurp. That's how we do. But on the downside, we're the countries that dominate alcohol consumption per capita in the world (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org])
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Yeah, in some of my bigger state power days, I actually proposed banning bar parking lots. I know it's not a real solution, but get people into the mindset of taking alternative transport there.
Strict Drunk Driving Laws (Score:2)
As long as the US and Canada treat drunk driving
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Since the pandemic started police have pretty much disappeared from the highways in our area. I've quite literally only seen a cop car passing through our neighborhood five times in the last two years,and I spend a lot of time outside gardening so would see them go by. It's much the same throughout the Puget Sound area, we don't see them on the freeway, or the side streets, or pretty much anywhere else outside downtown Seattle or Tacoma.
Are others seeing the same thing elsewhere?
Re: Sure, self driving cars. (Score:2)
Are others seeing the same thing elsewhere?
Yes. Cops have been told to "lay low" and minimize their visibility to the public. Because their presence could be emotionally triggering to certain people*. So they stay out of donut shops and lunchtime restaurants. And they don't "walk beats" anymore. Or do as much bicycle patrolling. They used to come in to my favorite coffee shop and sit down for a break. Not any more. Now, it 's come in, grab the coffee and get out.
*Usually, triggering refers to the activation of past traumatic memories in an individu
Re: Sure, self driving cars. (Score:2)
No, I am not seeing that at all. I see plenty of cops. I see some every day that I go out.
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I think public information campaigns, when well-designed, can also have a significant impact on drunk driving, i.e. stigmatise it to the point where it's not worth considering because everyone around you reacts in revulsion to the mere idea of it.
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Deterrents, harsher sentences, pervasive and effective enforcement, info campaigns, monitoring, car lockouts... None of these actually address WHY one drives drunk. That's not saying they do nothing, but it's chipping away at the problem instead of addressing the core.
Someone is drunk, has somewhere to be (often home or another establishment), has a car available nearby, and may be low on cash (just got drunk). Even if they take a car service, they'll need to get their car back later (next day). Sure, it's
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Proportionality has to be an element of sentencing if you want any semblance of justice. Premeditation is clearly worse than recklessness.
I spent 10 months on tramadol after a drunk driver ran into my bicycle and damaged a couple of my lower spinal discs. The opiates didn't actually take the pain away completely, but they did make it more-or-less managable if I also cut out all of my social life and went food shopping every day rather than weekly, to avoid carrying heavy bags. It was a pretty shitty year. B
well under the laws now self driving cars can = du (Score:2)
well under the laws now self driving cars can = dui.
Just by haveing the keys on you and also setting an destination in an some app or screen can = in control of the car.
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That's because currently self-driving cars are not self driving. They are not good enough for people to just sit back and ignore the road, so the person in the driver's seat has to be aware and paying attention. Maybe in 10 years, we might have true self-driving cars, but we are no where near that yet.
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Mercedes started working on their self driving tech in the 1990s, and expected to have a product for sale by 2008. It turns out to have been much more difficult than anyone thought.
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There's too much variety of things that can happen on a road, and the roads are not set up with things that would help the system navigate.
If roads were laid out more uniformly, had specific beacons marking them out that the cars can detect it would be a lot easier. Self driving works just fine on closed circuits for this reason but there's just too many miles of roads out there to retrofit this kind of thing everywhere.
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The opposite also seems possible, though. In India, where signage is nonexistent and lanes seem to be optional, they're having some surprising success with self-driving cars. Rather than scores of rules-based modules trying to account for every permutation of road conditions they're working on more a more generalized system. It's an interesting approach.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/indi... [ieee.org]
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick famously said, after experiencing New Delhi’s chaotic roads, that India will be th
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SDCs will eventually fix the problem, but that will take a while.
Even a decade from now, the majority of cars on the road will not be SDCs.
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Check their death record compared to humans.
Humans still rack up 35,000+ deaths on roadways. Just in the US.
If you’re implying that self-driving cars are “safer” than humans, don’t be that ignorant. Please. The moment lawmakers are sold on statistics driven by automation pimps is the moment meatsacks like you will pay FAR more for car insurance. You will instantly become THE liability on the road, regardless of how perfect your personal driving history may be.
Pay no attention to that massive DDoS hack on the future autonom
Re: Sure, self driving cars. (Score:2)
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DDOS won't work if the cars make most decisions locally.
Cars aren’t even built to be standalone today.
Not sure why you feel that’s suddenly going to change tomorrow.
Re: Sure, self driving cars. (Score:2)
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Local storage and compute should catch up soon to what a self-driving vehicle really needs. Considering that the Apollo 11 LEM landed with a computer inferior in every way to that in a USB plug (really) it's amazing how much more complicated this is turning out to be than anyone originally thought.
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Actually, Armstrong had to manually land the LEM due to the prime landing site being a boulder field. Now getting the ship to the Moon and back did depend on that computer.
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You might be able to overwhelm the sensors.
It takes a $5 can of spray paint to defeat a $5,000 camera security system.
Might be able to? More like will be able to.
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There's tons of sabotage people could do cars today already but there are limits to how much product design we can work around the" dicks of society deciding to do dick things".
At least I hope even with optical sensors today on cars is it's able to detect if the lens is blocked, especially if it's critical.
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At least I hope even with optical sensors today on cars is it's able to detect if the lens is blocked, especially if it's critical.
When kids today need GPS and a map app to simply navigate life, ALL sensors are life-and-death critical. Most of the justification for those sensors is because of how bad drivers and driver attentiveness has become.
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That is true, also if we could just swap all the humans with self driving cars we'd all be riding in them pretty soon.
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*The USA still has a thriving slavery industry in its prison system, e.g. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13... [npr.org] & https://www.thenation.com/arti... [thenation.com]
Re: Sure, self driving cars. (Score:2)
You can't do one at a time with spray paint and achieve a large scale DDoS. You might hit a few cars in my neighborhood. But odds are you'll get shot after hitting more than a couple.
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Waymo's car is a better driver than the average 16 year-old, and we've all been that driver at one time.
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Drunk pedestrians are at risk around self-driving cars. Actually you can be totally sober, the main worry is if you happen to be a pedestrian [wired.com] near where heavy machinery such as self-driving cars operate.
Re: Sure, self driving cars. (Score:2)
Drunk pedestrians are at risk around anything.
As well as people with their nose in a cell phone.
Not going to happen (Score:5, Interesting)
Every few years some government weenie wants to put breathalyser interlocks in all cars.....
"when the technology is mature."
I design a standards approved breathalyser in the mid 90's using a platinum acid fuel cell.
They won't work because
1- Not reliable enough (Imagine being stranded because the interlock broke)
2- Requires at least annual recalibration (Infrared and Fuel cell based)
3- Someone else can blow in them or make a breath simulator to blow for them.
4- Expensive.
5- Car manufacturers will lobby not to comply (because of 1,2,4)
6- People will rightly complain of government overreach.
The problem is solved through policing, fines, education and making DD cultural poison.
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The problem is solved through policing, fines, education and making DD cultural poison.
I think much like drugs we have reached that point where more enforcement has seriously diminished returns. If anyone isn't aware or cognizant in 2024 then it's clear some people simply do not care. We are American's. We like drinking and we also love cars and driving.
This is partly because so many areas of America are car only and well, cabs are pricey and nobody wants to leave their car overnight at the bar, it's a whole thing, it can never be "solved", I think it's as low as it will get until self dri
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Yes we are Americans, and we will misuse our apostrophes!
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Only a red uses proper punctuation!
Re:Not going to happen (Score:4, Funny)
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, proper punctuation uses YOU!
What a country!
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And man will never be able to fly, and no one will ever split the atom, and building a canal across Panama is impossible.
Birds already proved that man could accomplish flight because there were existing examples within observable nature. There is no human-level intelligence observable in nature other than humans. The closest analog we have in other animals are primates, and the intelligence gulf between man and ape is so large as to be impossible to bridge. The advanced tool usage among great apes is using a stick to scoop out termites from their mounds, let me know when they start tying flies and making reels to fish in stre
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Indeed. #6 is critical.
You can get away with mandating breathalyzer retrofits for those convicted of DUI violations. They're a small portion of the country. But I've been seeing news of red light cameras being virtually banned in many locations. Politicians elected for solely promising to get rid of them, voter initiatives, etc...
And again, red light cameras are minor compared to trying to put a breathalyzer into every vehicle. Every single politician who doesn't promise to get rid of that requirement
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Hell we have the technology today to prevent speeding. My car tells me every single time I drive that I'm above the legal speed limit. Every single time. According to the NHTSA, in 2022, speeding killed 12,151 people. You could easily have a limiter set to 5-10mph over the maximum allowed limit or even legally cap cars at 80mph and save lives.
Sure it might take 10 years until all the un-limited cars are off the road, but it would work. Sure it would piss me and everyone else off, but it would work. They won
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Regarding item 3, I think the modern ones monitor you constantly and can shut off the engine at any time. The sleepy driver sensors can do that.
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Every few years some government weenie wants to put breathalyser interlocks in all cars.....
"when the technology is mature."
I design a standards approved breathalyser in the mid 90's using a platinum acid fuel cell.
They won't work because ... ...
4- Expensive.
5- Car manufacturers will lobby not to comply (because of 1,2,4)
They're currently lobbying to avoid the cost of putting an AM radio in each car! Of course they won't eat such a significant cost and redesign.
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But that won't help our decline in population and therefore decline in government funding.
Just, no. (Score:2)
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My question is, why do people who have never been convicted of DWI have to pay for and have ignition interlocks in place? Most people are responsible enough to drive safely.
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Same reason why the same people want all cars to have sensor networks to monitor you for sleepy driving. The more chances they have to surveil you while driving, the better. For them.
This story and many like it (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an old trick, and if media literacy and critical thinking were taught in schools it wouldn't work.
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were written by the industry that makes car breathalyzers.
I read in the news that some provinces in Canada implementing mandatory breathalyzer test for any traffic stop. What is percentage of false posties for breathalyzers? It is not zero, and the more you test the more of these you have.
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Well, here in the USA even blowing a 0.00 doesn't mean that you won't get arrested for DUI:
Commerce cop repeatedly charged innocent drivers with DUI [fox5atlanta.com]
Nathan Winters [youtube.com] - The officer, despite seeing it read 0.00, immediately rolls into the arrest despite it being 0. The officer's excuse? "It could have been something other than alcohol." Mind you, Winters was a student athlete who was regularly drug tested as part of that.
69 arrested despite 0.00 in Oahu [msn.com]
Re: This story and many like it (Score:2)
It's actually a terrible idea to leave property empty, especially single family homes. There is so much that can go wrong and go unnoticed without anyone living in it, that even insurance companies will cancel the policy if it remains empty for too long. Real estate investors use leverage, and thus have mortgages. These require insurance to be carried on the property, or the loan becomes due on full. Even if they have separate income streams to make the monthly payments, it is just a bad idea all around.
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were written by the industry that makes car breathalyzers. Another good example is that corporations that own and leave empty huge numbers of single family homes are currently paying for scary stories about squatters because they want to be able to leave houses empty for decades in order to drive up rents and values on their portfolios.
Their greed is literally a driving force behind real estate instability, and no one being able to afford rent or a mortgage. And outside of Florida, few state leaders appear to be doing anything to address why they blatantly ignore their own breaking and entering laws in favor of giving a squatter “rights” to live rent free in that empty house, which often drives down the value of the asset. If they’re paying for scary squatter stories, then it’s money well wasted.
And of course there's all those stories about the "shoplifting epidemic" pushed by retailers that want you the taxpayer to pay for their security...
I prefer to suppo
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Another good example is that corporations that own and leave empty huge numbers of single family homes are currently paying for scary stories about squatters because they want to be able to leave houses empty for decades in order to drive up rents and values on their portfolios.
Near me is a group of about 20 single family homes, all greater than 2000 sq ft. and all owned by the same company (a REIT). 4 are currently available for rent, with a 5th coming soon. Guess what's happening to the rents: yes, the company actually increased the asking rent for one of the vacant houses. Some people think the free market will free us all and drive down prices, but what it really does is give freedom to a small number of companies and individuals to screw over ordinary people. I am not advocat
No (Score:2)
We're all luddites and anti-technology now. The west is devolving and will soon be a hunter-gatherer society, hopefully Africa or China will take up the mantle for humanity.
Headline is a question therefore answer is no. (Score:2)
I believe the usual "rule of thumb" applies that if a news headline asks a question then the answer is almost certainly negative.
What lowered drunken driving rates years ago wasn't laws punishing people driving drunk, it was a shift in public perception where it was no longer acceptable to drive drunk. The laws followed public perception, we'd have likely seen as much of a reduction in drunken driving had there not been any laws against it. It's not like drunken drivers go unpunished if they cause harm wh
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Of course high alcohol consumption is directly correlated to being a shitty driver, and the test is much, much faster and more accurate than a police car following you around and seeing if you are a shitty driver or not.
To have the BAC tested the police car has to "follow you around" to find a cause to pull you over. That is unless we dispense with the 4th amendment to the US Constitution. And the 5th amendment. And possibly other protections to rights made explicit in the US Constitution.
Maybe if we put BAC testing in vehicles to prevent the vehicle from being started if the test shows BAC being "too high". I expect that to be challenged as soon as someone is found frozen to death in their own car because they were ho
Is this connection valid? (Score:2)
"At the same time, arrests for driving under the influence have plummeted, as police grapple with challenges like hiring woes and heightened concern around traffic stops"
Has anyone ever complained that there are social equity concerns around police stops for suspected DUI? Certainly there have been concerns voiced about technical violations that don't present immediate safety impacts, so called "pretextual stops" that are intended primarily as a pretext to check for other illegal behavior. Stops for broke
Pay a criminals tax? No. (Score:3)
Suggesting that car “technology” should be responsible is suggesting that technology become mandatory in every new car.
FUCK that. I don’t drive impaired, and I don’t loan my car out to anyone that would. Put that car tax on those earning it. Tired of paying for other stupid fucks irresponsibility.
And if you’re too afraid to execute a traffic stop, then I’m not confident you’re in the right profession.
Maybe ... (Score:2)
It's called Uber (Score:2)
Uber drops drunk driving rates.
Nanny state garbage is not the answer.
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Uber is available, the drunk driving and deaths continue..
I knew these compressed air cans... (Score:2)
Would one day prove useful for something besides blowing cat hair out of my keyboard.
Why not check for all impairment, not just alcohol (Score:3)
A relative has a luxury car with drowsiness detection. One trip I told my wife I thought it was time to change drivers, and just as I was parking, the car dinged and displayed a coffee cup icon.
There's sleepiness, and also alcohol is not the only drug out there which interferes with driving.
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The technology was available since 1807 (Score:2)
Yes (Score:2)
Sure it can (Score:2)
Well sure (Score:2)
Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a simple technology that's been around since it was developed in Paris in the 1600s. With it, the number of drunk driving deaths could be drastically reduced.
It's called "public transportation."
Investing in public transportation to make it safe and accessible would do more to reduce drink driving, speeding and other traffic violations than any number of police ever could.
Manufacturers of this tech lie like carpets (Score:3)
The problem with using alcohol-sensing ignition interlocks is that they don't work very well. One of my buddies got convicted of drunk driving, and had to have one installed in his car for a year.
I wound up acting as his de facto taxi, because the device screwed up on a regular basis and refused to start his car when he was 100% sober. It was also programmed to test at random times while he was actually driving, and that could be ridiculously dangerous...like on a highway at rush hour when it cut his ignition because he couldn't get to the side of the road in time for his random test.
This guy is not an alcoholic...he wasn't sneaking shots and then failing. I was actually in the car with him once when he "failed" and couldn't start the car because he'd eaten a couple of pepperoni sticks. So had I, so I had to take a taxi back to my place and pick up my car so we could get on with the day.
Incidents like these were not rare. That worthless piece of tech trash screwed up at least once a week. Companies that say they're reliable are absolute liars, and I have no doubt installing them on a widespread basis would be a disaster.
In a larger sense, I am also suspicious of claims that drunk driving is increasing. Where I lived when this situation arose, the police really wanted to make a case for being able to just pull people over at random for a sobriety test without any evidence of erratic driving (What could possibly go wrong with random stop and search!). So all of a sudden, we were inundated with statistics about "alcohol related accidents". When you read the fine print, it turned out that along with legitimate DUI cases, there were a bunch of other situations included to bulk up the numbers. For example, let's say you had a single glass of wine or a beer, not nearly enough to get you convicted of DUI. You're driving along, minding your own business, when some idiot who has no business owning a license runs a stoplight and T-bones your car. All the appropriate charges are laid...no problem there. But when that accident is recorded for statistical purposes, it would go in the books as "alcohol related", because one of the drivers had non-zero blood alcohol.
I am not an advocate for drunk driving, but I am 100% certain it is being used as an excuse to give the government and law enforcement an excuse to shove their long, flexible nose even further into the business of law-abiding citizens.
What do you expect if DUI doesn't result in a ban? (Score:3)
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The points and offence code go on your driving licence and when you get your licence back the quotes for car insurance, which is mandatory in the UK, are so horrific that for some people it effectively extends their ban.
This is a bit of a Catch-22 opinion on this since the outcome of not pulling a drunk off the road could result in great harm or death, but having access to a car as an adult, is quite important. Even critical for survival when your options to get to a place of employment are car, car, or car.
Yeah, yeah. I get it. The whole “they should have thought about that” rhetoric. I get it. Fair point, but perhaps not when you consider someone who didn’t harm anyone, committed the offense once,
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The U.S. has a relatively unique situation in that large swaths of the country have effectively no public transit and the cities are so spread-out that non-motorized transit like cycling is often not viable. In many parts of the country, the only way to hold down a job and carry out the necessary tasks of daily life like buying groceries is to drive a car. Recognizing this, the legal system is far more reticent to impose outright bans to first-time offenders than places where there are other options besides
Anything ... (Score:2)
New class of never drivers (Score:2)
Auto-brewery syndrome [cnn.com] may make it difficult, if not impossible for some people to drive if this technology is implemented.
Just to head off likely criticism of the point I am making, I'll quote from the article:
"the judge emphasized that the defendant, who was not named in line with local judicial custom, did not experience symptoms of intoxication."
I start my car ... (Score:2)
Changing Behavior is Quicker and Cheaper (Score:2)
Superman is not coming.
Every time someone promises a technological solution to a human behavior issue, we get farther from solving the problem. If we decide that 45,000 road deaths per year is too high a cost for the 3.19 trillion vehicle miles traveled per year, then we can:
1. Require actual driver training, education, and certification prior to granting driving privileges.
2. Be more strict on major road crimes: criminal speeding, driving without a valid driver licenses, drunk driving, etc.
3. Require licen
successful technology (Score:2)
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -- Clarke.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology that fully solves a societal problem is indistinguishable from dystopia." -- me
Ads for a killer intoxication run high (Score:2)
Meanwhile, 3 beer brands and a whiskey brand are advertising on the Super Bowl. That really helps people get trying not to drink right. How's that working for you?
Anyways. One way to get less DUI is to get people to drink less. How hard can it be?
Tech isn't there... (Score:2)
The problem is that the technology just isn't there yet to make this an invisible/seamless experience. Interlock devices have been installed for DUI convictions for decades and they have a track record of being extremely unreliable. Your car will simply not start when needed, or may even shut down unexpectedly when equipped with these devices. Nobody, if given a choice, would ever drive a car equipped with interlocks as they currently exist. Any false positives (or even the prospect thereof) would make an i
alcohol detection is not the best use of technolog (Score:2)
Yes, 1800s technology (Score:2)
It's called RAIL.
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Re:This isn't an honest attempt at problem solving (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe the legal language is something like "they either knew or were reckless in not knowing that their product was causing thousands of deaths every year".
A hammer or an axe being used as a weapon is very uncommon and would be considered an outlier and be viewed as an unforeseeable circumstance. But Coors knows without a doubt that their products will definitely lead to DUIs. That's a very big difference in culpability.
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It is because of bullshit logic like yours that I can't find useful cold medicine.
I don't know the chemistry involved in making meth but it apparently involved a certain cold medicine, lithium button cells, and ammonia. I don't recall anything changing on getting lithium cells except that they've gotten larger, likely to do with avoiding a swallow hazard than anything with making drugs. Farmers now have to have some kind of license to buy ammonia, and put locks on the valves to avoid theft. And the cold
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I specifically stated that I do not believe in prohibition but that's the reason you can't get codeine over the counter. alcohol isn't just legal to sell, it's manufacturers receive special treatment that most industries don't have.
If I started selling a video game that ended up killing 10,000 people every year, there's a legal framework for society to hold me accountable. that does not apply to alcohol manufacturers.
I'm not really sure how you confused liability with prohibition. Good luck with y
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I specifically stated that I do not believe in prohibition but that's the reason you can't get codeine over the counter.
I pointed out that my inability to get cough syrup with codeine came before the change in laws that required a prescription.
The reason stores didn't want to carry the medicine was because of liability, the laws didn't protect the pharmacies from liability like we see with other legally protected activity like selling alcohol. That's evidence of your call to make producers liable for what others do with their product will drive retailers, such as pharmacies, to choose to not carry the product. Or at least
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I do not think alcohol should be illegal but I do not believe Coors and Budweiser should get a free pass to sell products that kill people. One kid dies from swallowing a toy and our regulators do the right thing, Thousands die from alcohol every month and the government does nothing.
Sell products that kill people? I take it you do not own anything that could fall into the hands of a child and harm them, else you would be a raging hypocrite.
Forget alcohol for a minute. Thousands die from firearms every year, but the overwhelming majority of those deaths are due to suicide. Who should get the free pass here? Still think Remington and Colt should be punished while Big Pharma and Social Media pimps make an extra trillion or seven peddling psychotropic drugs for kids while destroying se
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Thousands die from firearms every year, [...] big pharma [...] social media
You have the finest laws money can buy. All of those are problems, pretty big ones. The existence of big problems doesn't imply you should either do nothing or be compelled to tackle them all equally fast at the same time.
There's also a long distance between doing absolutely nothing and an outright ban.
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There's also a long distance between doing absolutely nothing and an outright ban.
Unlike voting, the US actually wised up by raising the minimum drinking age from 18 to 21. The ATF established considerable taxes on what falls under their purvey. Banned or limited marketing to kids. Hell, we even legalized weed as a safer alternative.
With regards to alcohol, I wouldn’t say we’re doing or have done “absolutely nothing”. And we already tried to ban it with horrific results. We’ve gone that long distance on this.
People also don’t want to admit that a
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Many of them don't have enough money to afford a car anyway. Sad!
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If governments had shut down the sales of booze during the lockdowns, it would have been political suicide.
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If governments had shut down the sales of booze during the lockdowns, it would have been political suicide.
Ah, not quite. It would have been social suicide.
Would YOU want to live in a world where millions of citizens who are physically and psychologically addicted, were abruptly cut off? With a global pandemic to boot? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Alcoholics raging in the streets would have made BLM riots look like a Disney parade.
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Agreed. Local law enforcement can already install these things on people's cars when they get a DUI. That's as far as it should go. Mandatory breathalyzer sucks, just like the mandatory "sleepy driver" sensor networks that spy on you constantly to make sure you're driving while awake.
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My understanding (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) is that it's not even illegal to put a tracker on someone's vehicle, it just can't be used as evidence unless you have a search warrant first.
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