Slashdot Mirror
Remote Breathalyzer
Foredecker writes: "I couldn't believe my eyes when I read an EE
Times article about
about remote breathalyzer technology
developed by TCU. This device is apparently intended for installation in new cars. In essence, it is a sensor in your car which would signal any nearby police if you had been drinking."
More like it signals police if ANYONE in your car has been drinking.
What a really good idea.
Could they put a detector in the car that tells the cops to bring a change of underwear for little kids on those too-long trips where they just can't hold it anymore?
nWo 4 Life
Gee, it seems very easy to defeat... let alone what if you have 3 very drunk friends in a closed window car?
As for those who would claim invasion or violation of Constitutional rights, uh, driving is a privledge, not a right. They can set arbitrary requirements up until the public throws them out.
Now, forcing this on people with at least one dui conviction would not be out of the question would it? Still the ease in fooling it kind of defeats the purpose.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Just sell friggin breathalyzers to the general public so they can see for themselves if they're over the legal limit. Why do we need all the Big BrotherTM crap? How the hell is that supposed to help anything?
If you let people take responsibility for themselves you'd be surprised what you find. Most people I know who have ever been cited for DUI didn't realize they were over the legal limit.
Is there some type of breathalyzer available to the general public?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
only criminals will drive drunk.
Wait.
Never mind. I thought I had something insightful.
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Something tells me TCU is not going to make the "Top Ten Party Schools" list anytime soon.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Seems like no better a time to repeat:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "
- Ben Franklin
I would like a sensor at the local police station in my neighborhood that alerts citizens when the cops are anally raping black men with a toilet plunger. Then, maybe, I would be interested in installing this sensor in my car.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I recent Engineering grad from Texas A&M University and I saw some TCU students (I believe the ones mentioned in the article) give a presentation for this at a conference I went to last Spring. I'll come right out and say I didn't like the concept of my car reporting to Big Brother. So if you see any bias in this comment now you know why. Full disclosure I suppose.
:)
Anyway, If you read the article closely you will see that each of the cars has a radio link that reports to everyone around you the sobriety of the driver. The Linx radio unit is actually a very cheap way to do low bandwidth wireless communications. So slashdot hardware hackers take note
As you can imagine the alcohol monitoring concept did not go over well amoung my classmates. Personally, I think they might as well put a blinking alcohol barometer on your car. Of course, we were college students and our demographics do not lend well to this experiment.
Another problem I had was with the obvious false positives from an alcohol sensing fuel cell. Perhaps they did find a way to distinguish from ethyl alcohol from bars and rubbing alcohol in perfumes. I know the article says they had, but I have serious reservations about the statement. But since I can't prove either way I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. As many have pointed out here what if you are the designated driver? What if you just went to a bar and someone spilled even a little beer on you? This has happened many times to me. The sensors will have to be ultra sensitive to pick up airborne molecules of alcohol.
Although the motives of the students are well meant because we all don't want drunk drivers hurting our loved ones the cost to civil liberties are immense. A 24/7 "air tap" for alcohol would be an extreme invasion of privacy. There is no way you could get a wire tap without a court order and I don't know how these guys think they can get car manufacturers and the American pubic to agree to volunatary constant surveillance via an "air tap".
In any case, to be fair these are Engineering students and their job isn't to decide the politics of the unit. Thats for Political Science types. I agree that their intentions are good, but the implementation is certainly not. I should also mention that the students and faculty I met from TCU were all nice and personable individuals and this comment was not meant to be a personal attack on them in any way. I simply do not agree with their topic of research.
I am at work right now. But I will try to find some of the notes and info I took from the conference when I get home tonight. I should at least have a copy of their presentation on the conference CD-ROM. So stay tuned.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
I'm stunned. Not that the device existed, but by what they want to do with it. I assumed that the posts here would be the usual ignorant overreaction to taking a line out of context, but it's not.
This is the most serious threat to American liberty since the proposed flag burning amendment [I support burning flag burners, but an amendment to ban that hateful activity will do more damage to the flag than all the cretins that ever burned it. That flag represents the very liberty that allows them to burn it, and burning it acknowleges that . . . but I digress.]
I loathe drunk drivers. After a first offense, when the license is eventually restored, the drunk should be required to have a reflective Scarlet D on all sides of the vehicle and a distinctive tint to his headlights to warn us he's coming. On a second conviction, license revocation should be permanent with no future license for anything heavier than a moped. [I *grudgingly* acknowledge that a first offense might conceivably happen to someone from not understanding the levels involved. Grudgingly. Once a person has been through that, though . .
Is it clear enough yet that I want everly last drunk caught and executed?
That said, this devise is an intrusion at the level that should have common citizens ready to take up arms against the government. This *is* an intrusive search. This is *more* than a little step down the slippery slope to the surveillance of 1984.
There is a clear role for such technology. When I first started practicing in '89, one of the lawyers from my suite came back confused as to what the judge hade ordered on a drunk. He had gone in expecting a prison term, but the judge ordered "interlock," which he'd never heard before. It was a breathalyzer attached to the ignition system, a damned good idea (add it to my D above
Something sampling the air neer the steering wheel would be harder to defeat (though how many people will breath in the tube for their driver???). As a consequence of conviction, such a device is reasonable. But this device is fundamentally flawed in concept.
Send a little signal to the police? How about *calling* them??? For that matter, the car shouldn't even *start*, or should shut off (after a warning period to pull over). This device is *insane*.
hawk, esq.
That they expect you to pay to have the device installed in your car. Next they'll expect me to pony up for smoke detectors that detect pot smoke and radio the police.
Have we forgotten the very important "He who would trade liberty for safety deserves neither"?? As I recall, Oral sex is still illegal as a form of sodomy. When will the government require that you "Blow for sperm"??
Time to look in to Canadian Immigration....
~Hammy