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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
If cars are still able to be crashed in 10 years, I think something has gone wrong. Isn't the real solution to drunk driving to get rid of all people controlled driving? That could be the great selling point of more automated cars: "Feel free to drive home drunk."
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.
Just one of standard "concerns", I imagine...
Also - nvm how driving drunk is not exactly "law abiding" - being killed or losing somebody, all in the name of some drunk who wanted to have a ride, is a much, much greater invasion of privacy.
One that hath name thou can not otter
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.
If the data is collected then someone will find a way to abuse it.
Think about your insurance company or employer. If they could go back and pull your auto's history of your intoxication logs. They would find a way to use this to their advantage.
The collection and retention is data is generally to the disadvantage of the little guy...
I think you accidentally a verb.
Karnal
In Colorado, the data captured by the interlock device is periodically downloaded by the installer and sent to the Department of Revenue. If the driver has failed the test 3 or more times in a 12 month period their license is again suspended regardless of the cause of the failure.
False positives are a common occurrence and result in more than just the inconvenience of not being able to start the car.
The device itself is a point of failure that can render your car useless until you have it towed to a shop for repairs.
You might believe that repeat offenders deserve the hassle of the interlock device but requiring all vehicles to have some sort of alcohol monitoring system is costly, ineffective, dumb and wrong.
Well, according to this, about 32% of all car accident-related deaths are due to drunk driving. That means, that 68% are due to non-drunk driving! People, if you want to lower the number of people killed in traffic accidents, start drinking, because the sober people are more dangerous.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Driving drunk is already against the law. If someone decides to drive drunk, bypassing a sensor is the least of their concerns.
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.
I don't really see a problem with this. If you drive drunk, you are probably an unacceptable risk for an insurance company. Here in the UK, many people convicted of drink-driving find that after their ban has expired they still cannot drive, because no insurance company will touch them.
If your society needs to rely on electronic gadgets in cars to prevent drunk drivers, you're fucked. "Mind if I pass you, Lindsay Lohan, you are swerving on the highway? Oh, look, Charlie Sheen has passed out on the side of the road again."
In the country where I live, kids can drink alcoholic beverages when they are 16. But they are taught not to drink and drive. You will see a table with a bunch of teenage guys quaffing beers. And one guy will be drinking Coca-Cola. Guess who is driving.
To hammer the point home again, teaching people not to drink and drive is better than any control mechanism.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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?
Just like how the single decision of a 17 year old that has sex with a consenting 16 year old partner should make him forever after inform employers and neighbors that he is a sex offender? Oh, that and some jail time?
I flat-out mistrust MADD, which is always on the side of more police power. They are to the traffic police what child pornography is to Internet regulation.
YES!
I'm sick of the "do we have to wait" excuse. Yes we do have to wait. Do you want to round up all muslims because they could be terrorists? Do you want to round up all the "odd people" because they could be perverts? Or how about rounding up all geeks, we could all be hackers as far as Average Joe out there is concerned.
Yes, we do have to wait for someone to break the law before we punish him. Then we should punish him and make sure that he cannot endanger the public again. "Pre-emptive" measures mean nothing less but limiting everyone's freedoms for the sake of maybe, possibly, avoiding something nasty.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Preventive measures that encumber everyone are merely a PC effort to avoid punishing the guilty.
DUI should carry a one-year mandatory jail sentence. Don't want to get busted? Don't fucking drink and drive.
As I used to tell my military motorcycle safety classes:
"I might drink 'til it runs out my ears, but I don't drive until I'm sober and alert. Party at the house, take everyone's keys, and we won't be going to a memorial service for a dead drunk or the people they kill."
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
That will be REAL popular with drivers up north. Especially with people who don't drink anyway but DO have poor circulation in their hands.
That doesn't make any sense.
First of all, if the driver has this installed because they have been convicted of driving drunk . . . WHY ARE THEY BEING ALLOWED TO DRIVE AT ALL?
Second of all, if the device is preventing the person from driving, who cares if they fail the "test" a thousand times in a year?
This kind of stuff reminds me of the bullshit in Oregon. In Oregon, we have the OLCC (Oregon Liquor Control Commission). In Oregon, a shop keeper is not allowed to directly purchase alcohol. The state purchases all of the alcohol and then marks up the price and sells it to retailers who then mark it up and sell it to customers. Until just a few years ago, one of the OLCC's laws required that customers provide a DRIVER'S LICENSE as identification at a bar. Not a state ID card. It had to be a LICENSE. In other words, if you had absolutely no way you could be driving yourself home, then you weren't allowed to drink. I think this was changed only about five years ago.
Of course, the OLCC is a whole other story, frankly. In Oergon, all liquor is owned by the state. The entire inventory in your store is owned by the state and you are working on commission, essentially. And only liquor stores can sell liquor (ie, nothing stronger than beer in your grocery store). There are about 200+ of these in the state. They also don't allow places to serve more than one drink at a time. Or drink from a pitcher (even if you ordered a pitcher).
Required liability insurance should not work as punishment. I can understand why insurance companies may want to increase the premium, but outright denying coverage should not be allowed.
This is similar to the issue of sex offender registration. If a guy has paid from his crimes (fine, driving ban, jail, whatever), then he should not have to suffer any more.
They're not "denied coverage", it's just priced well out of their reach. Tough shit, shouldn't have driven drunk.
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.
No MADD would rather no one drink, ever.
What about those people who are constantly using those alcohol-based hand sanitizer products? Will their car assume that they are drunk and refuse to start?
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Er, why shouldn't it? You'd rather force insurance companies to take risks that as honest businesses, they shouldn't? Introduce either additional legislation forcing companies to provide insurance to high-risk individuals, or starting up a separate government insurance for individuals who can't get insurance from private companies?
The insurance is required because otherwise innocent individuals would need to pay for the damages caused by others, but drunk drivers are regarded as a high risk by companies, and so coverage is costed to reflect that high risk. Allowing them to go without insurance is a terrible idea since they're the ones most likely to use it, and mandating affordability is terrible since it punishes those who are forced to insure them, or those who are soaking up the cost being passed on to them by their insurance company. Personally, I think the system's working, and is completely separate and unlike the sex offender registry in any way.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Deal with the abuse of the drugs (DUI) not the banning of them, or alcohol.
That's exactly what this invention does. I'm for it.
Driving while drunk is against the law: If you're drunk and you turn the key, you have broken the law. This invention determines whether you are currently breaking the law, not whether you're likely to do so, or have done so in the past.
The "privacy" argument would only make sense if you believe that the actions you take with your car are your own, private business. Considering that they travel on public roads, I disagree with that belief, and frankly find it hard to understand how anyone could argue otherwise.
Tom Geller
>> 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.
How to Measure Anything is an awesome book.
43,443 deaths from traffic accidents in 2005 (the worst year in the past 20). To prevent 9,000, one in five traffic fatalities would have to be due to alcohol impairment and be prevented by the system.
That may be true, I don't have the stats handy for a more precise measurement.
We must also consider cost. There are three hundred million people in the united states. If one in three have access to a car, and on average those one in three start their car once every three days (call it 100 starts per year on average), that equals (300m / 3) * 100, or ten billion starts per year.
The value of a human life (according to wrongful death suits) is about $25m. Very rough guess, of course.
What is the cost of you car failing to start? Something more than a dollar and less than -- maybe $100 -- on average. Wild-assed guess range there, so I made it broad.
250m vehicles on the road, 10 years median age, 25m new cars per year.
Device cost $25 - $100. Guessing, should be in there, including sensor, interlock, maintenance, and engineering it into the system -- once production ramps up.
9,000 deaths (perhaps an overestimate, probably not an underestimate, IMO)
10b starts per year
Start value range $1-$100
$25m value per life
25m vehicles per year.
Device cost $25 - $100 per unit.
$25m per life times 10k lives (rounding up) = $250b per year.
25m devices times $25 - $100 = $625m - $2.5b per year.
So the device cost portion is essentially inconsequential.
10b starts * {$1 - $100} per start = $10b - $1t start value per year.
{$10b - $1t} / $25b = 0.4 to 4.
Even if you assume $100 value per start, the device only has to make the right decision 3 out of 4 times to be worth it.
When I started this calculation, I was expecting to show numbers clearly opposed to this obvious infringement of personal liberty. I don't like the answer, but it is what it is. These numbers could be off. Given the spin I wanted to put on it, I intentionally edged the numbers in favor of the devices to mitigate the risk of being considered a charlatan.
Based on this rough calculation, it looks like the pure economic case for the devices might hold water.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
MADD's goal is prohibition. Along the way they make alliances with politicians and companies eager to manufacture devices like this. If they succeed in getting this crap mandated on all cars, clever drunks will circumvent it and less technologically savvy teetotalers will find themselves unable to drive once these sensors fail. Just look at all the O2 sensor failures. This one will fail too and likely be expensive to replace. Maybe this is what it will take to turn the public against MADD. Go for it MADD. Hike up the cost and failure rate of cars.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
And this is where the theory of "you can do anything you want that doesn't harm others," given without qualifiers, falls apart.
I don't see how it falls apart. If someone drives impaired (by a drug or something else), and hurts or kills someone, then obviously that action should be illegal. That means that drunk or drugged driving should be illegal, as it already is. You can get powerful prescription drugs perfectly legally, but if you drive under their influence and hurt someone, you go to prison for DUI, just as if you did the same with cocaine or pot.
However, if someone ingests a drug, by themselves, in their apartment, then what's the problem? They're only hurting themselves. As long as they don't operate heavy equipment, there is no problem.
Now, you could make some lame argument about "everyone is connected" or somesuch, and how it's going to hurt their families if they die of an OD, but that's a crap argument. Because by that same line of thinking, you should ban being gay, because that's going to hurt their families when they don't have children, or you should ban being atheist or any religious conversion, because that'll hurt their parents when their child abandons their religion. Or you could ban skiing, because someone might hit a tree and die, and then that'll hurt their employer financially. Or you could ban marriage and families, because they take away time that could be used by employees to do more work for the employer.
If individual liberty is at all important, then there's absolutely no reason to ban drugs.
As for Wall Street, there's two problems: 1) Wall Street isn't an individual, it's corporations. In a sane society, corporations would not be treated as people, and not have all the liberties that individuals do. and 2) their actions do affect people and the whole economy greatly, so there is justification for regulation there (again, coupled with the fact that they aren't people).
I made this point in response to someone else, but: Alcohol impairs response time (and judgment, to some extent, but response time most of all). We had been nearly parked in during a Christmas party: My (entirely sober) wife was unwilling to attempt extraction, but understanding alcohol impairment, was happy to let me pull our car out of its parking place. I did so, then turned the driver's seat over to her. With the article's alcohol detection system in place, I would not have been able to drive at all, not even in a private drive (where we'd been parked); it couldn't know "public roads" (your term) from the private drive, where I endangered no one.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
So technically nobody should complain about DRM. If it fails to work in your machine and locks you out even though you bought it fairly, or if the shitty driver somehow fucks up your system, it's just an inconvenience. After all, the game could crash due to a bug just as well as for the reason that the verification server cannot be reached for a few seconds, and that shitty copycripple driver that BSODs your system, well, any driver could be faulty, right?
But just like that testing part it's something that NEED NOT fail because it is not required for the operation.
And I somehow feel a bit odd for coming up with a computer analogy in a car topic...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.