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Sensor Measures In Fingertips If Driver Is Drunk
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Economic Times reports on the first working prototypes of a new technology that would measure blood alcohol content in a driver's fingertips, using sophisticated touch-based sensors situated in steering wheels and door locks and engineers say that unlike court-ordered breath-analyzer ignition locks, which require a driver to blow into a tube and wait a few seconds for the result, their systems will analyze a driver's blood-alcohol content in less than one second. Anti-drunken driving crusaders believe that almost 9,000 road traffic deaths could be prevented every year if alcohol detection devices were used in all vehicles to prevent alcohol-impaired drivers from driving their vehicles. 'We believe this might turn the car into the cure for the elimination of drunk driving,' says Laura Dean-Mooney, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But not everyone is enamored of the device which could be available to automakers in eight to 10 years. 'For ordinary, law-abiding citizens, it's an invasion of their privacy,' says Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party."
My fingers get cold. I drive with gloves, at least till the car warms up.
I imagine drunk drivers would do the same.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Problem solved. The marijuana/cocaine/etc ban makes it illegal to imbibe these substances. So let's just do the same with alcohol, and all our problems will disappear. No more drunks == no more drunk driving.
Note:
I'm being sarcastic.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Surely the car wouldn't send the data anywhere; it would just be used to disable the ignition. How is this an invasion of privacy?
Problem solved. The marijuana/cocaine/etc ban makes it illegal to imbibe these substances. So let's just do the same with alcohol, and all our problems will disappear. No more drunks == no more drunk driving.
Note:
I'm being sarcastic.
I certainly hope so. People should be able to put anything they want into their bodies, upto and including cyanide. Else they are not truly free.
Deal with the abuse of the drugs (DUI) not the banning of them, or alcohol.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
For sure, deaths as a result drunk driving are both preventable and tragic.
But folks, let's have some perspective with the hysteria: 9000 death a year are in fact one of the smaller numbers in the world of preventable deaths.
The hysteria far outweighs the threat, much like TSA and air travel.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Call me stupid but how is this an invasion of privacy, it's not like information regarding your drunkenness is being passed over to the authorities.
Mark Hinkle, chairman of the Libertarian National Committee, fears the devices could evolve like seat belts — introduced as voluntary safety features that become lawfully enforced.
Oh yes those evil seat belts made mandatory because they save peoples lives, damn evil big government regulating car safety . Has it come to the point where there has to be a knee-jerk reaction to everything just for the sake of it?
This is taking the entirely wrong approach here. The thing I never quite understood about ignition interlocks is why repeat DUI offenders are even allowed to drive a car at all. If after $N_MAX_OFFENSES you still can't control yourself, I don't trust you with a car, period. What this idea says is that because we've decided in giving an infinite number of second chances to the small fraction of the population that can't realistically be expected to act responsibly on their own, we're now going to impose an expensive mandatory new toy on everyone else, out of their pockets, and if the thing screws up and gives a false alarm, too bad.
If the court can order you to pay for an ignition interlock after a DUI, then it can sure as hell order you to sell your car, period.
Can we try that first?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Stuff happens, people die. One of my best friends in high school was killed when his car was hit by a drunk. To me, I'd rather the drunk lost his license rather than my car fitted with an interlock. I don't even drink, why should I have to pay for someone else's irresponsibility?
Measures like this are a waste of everyone's resources that distract from more serious problems - broken education, declining scientific investment, an uncompetitive economy, etc.
Endangering one's self is freedom. Endangering other's life abuses other's freedom.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Don't let them bullshit you for one second that the value of lives is at all relevant to them, here. The motivating factor is the value of the government contracts that will be handed out should this idea succeed. The same kind of contracts that benefit certain industries if we fall for the idea that we should stick everyone under house arrest and fit them with an electronic bracelet for even the slightest crime (and, of course, people will think that's a tremendous idea if the alternative is jail time).
The result is an enormous revenue stream. Every single person in this country convicted of some sort of a violation (in this case, we'll just stick to alcohol related) fitted with an expensive device for an additional expensive installation fee. Then their car, fitted with an expensive device and another expensive installation fee. Then expensive monthly subscriptions (paid out of the individual's pocket) for monitoring and maintenance. If you don't have the money or you find it an abhorrent solution, then you can always opt not to participate and not pay all of that money. Of course, then we're going to lock you up in prison for a year. So it's not like we're not giving you freedom of choice!
If they REALLY gave a fuck about preventing lives, the solution wouldn't involve ridiculously complex and expensive monitoring and fittings and equipment farmed out to private industry. The solution would be that if you are convicted of driving drunk, your license would be revoked for the rest of your life and if you still put society in danger by driving without a license, then we stick you in prison.