In that case, even leaving aside the moving goalposts, you have already achieved the goal. Industry has the ability to install the interlocks on every car now, and they have chosen not to. Because the market has spoken, and so has the regulatory regime.
I know this because I spoke with the CEO of the company that holds the relevant patents regarding taking a job with the intent of changing both the market perception and the regulatory regime so that current generation models would be in every car.
Oh yeah, note that the technology is still evolving, far faster than people tend to replace their cars. That means, even getting them into all cars should you start including them in 100% of all manufactured cars today will take decades,. and then most of them will be far out of date at any given time, with all the attendant legal problems that would entail.
Anyone interested in this, I bet the job is still open, and what with the government a “reluctant investor” in an increasingly large share of the US Auto manufacturers, the next month or so might be a superb time to make a dent in the regulatory regime that holds this back. Good luck with that!
Fuck, even honest people will bypass a safeguard if it’s inconvenient. That’s how you end up with million-dollar security systems being compromised when some employees prop open a door with a chair when they go outside to smoke. As soon as these gizmos are made mandatory, the internet will be full of workarounds.
Yeah I wonder why lawyers spend years in law school and beyond studying the law when they could look it up in OED for free.:rolleyes:
But hey, if your level of legal education and depth of understanding is shown by your reliance on a pithy dictionary entry to explain to you a complex legal concept developed over ~ 1000 years, then, well, I guess I understand where the rest of your argument comes from too.
And if you believe some cant catchphrase (“innocent till proven guilty” – say, which part of the Constitution does that verbiage come from?) establishes actual, factual (as opposed to fictitiously, and probably felicitously, legally-presumed) innocence – then you’re not just not a lawyer, you don’t understand some pretty basic ontological concepts.
Because it’s something I neither need nor want. I presume the government would pay the repair bills for everyone who lacks the cash to pay for it themselves? Or are we just going to put driving a vehicle out of financial reach for more people?
Who is going to pay to build the jails in which to house those who intentionally disable the device, or have it fail on them and don’t get it repaired within X number of days?
Your misstep is that you believe that actual, factual guilt is what is punishable by society. It isn’t.
It’s the fictitious and felicitous determination of guilt in accordance with due process that is punishable by society.
And your reading of the conjunction “guilty or convicted of a crime” is erroneous. Both guilt or conviction rest upon, you guessed it, the existence of a fictitious and felicitous determination in a court of law.
triers of fact are the arbiters of fact in our legal system - some metaphysical determination that something “did” happen outside the confines of a fictitious judicial system is insufficient.
1.) Those are restraint devices that remain optional in terms of operating the vehicle. You get an annoying dinging alarm when you don’t put your seatbelt on, but the car doesn’t stop you from driving, even in states where seatbelt use is mandatory.
2.) If the government mandates that all cars have these interlocks, presumably uninstalling, disabling, or otherwise finding a workaround for the interlock would be considered criminal (much as it would be for someone currently required to have one because of their DUI history). Submit to the “search” (IIRC, tests of these kinds–DNA, blood, etc.–are considered a form of search for constitutional purposes) or be subject to penalties–that sounds like criminal jeopardy to me.
I never said I’m for “mandatory” and no, I don’t think there’d be a public outcry for it to become mandatory. I do think that if it was an option, many people would take advantage of it.
Jesus dude, is it your personal goal to turn everything into a gun debate? That’s almost as annoying as people who turn everything into a political or religious debate…
How about we limit to “Parents who don’t drink might put this in the cars of teen drivers,” or “Parents might install this in the cars they give their teens to drive, that they don’t drive themselves”.
Such people do exist - my parents were both (that is, they both don’t drink and provided a separate (junkier) car to their kids to drive). When you take away the impetuses (impeti?) for them not to install the device, you open the door for much less crazy parents to seriously consider the idea.
And it wouldn’t be mandatory. Prohibition would be as likely to be made mandatory. Um, again.
I don’t think it’s technically possible to implement this. When the police stop people on suspicion of drinking and driving here, the second question they ask is ‘how long was it since your last alcoholic drink?’ - if it’s only a few minutes, they’ll make you sit in the car and wait until the alcohol on your breath is more accurately representative of the alcohol in your bloodstream.
It’s possible to drink coke all night, then take just a single sip of a strong alcoholic drink just before you leave the bar, and blow a reading that is way over the legal limit for driving. Even some kinds of mouthwash will do it. So you’d have to sit in the car and wait twenty minutes before it would start.
Another problem. Most cars run on a blend of gasoline and ethanol both of which evaporate quite easily. Standard cars run 10% ethanol, e85 runs 85% ethanol. It’s also quite easy to get gas on your hands when putting in fuel from a fuel can.
What happens when you try to blow the breathalyzer in the same car with your gas fuming hands?
But people drive with a breathalyzer on their vehicle all the time. They manage quite nicely. All these contingencies don’t amount to a solid reason against one as a voluntary option on a vehicle.
Indeed. You can in fact voluntarily go and get one now, but nobody has, barring an extremely insignificant minority. This tells me that people think the cost and hassle are not outweighed by the benefits of such a device, and will only get one if forced to do so.
My opinion is simply that most people don’t drive when outrageously drunk, many do so while slightly drunk, and thats a risk I’m willing to live with. Fatalities occuring from drunk driving are not all that high, and all in all is an insignificant risk that one shouldn’t lose sleep over. Likely the laws are too strict and too much effort is being spent with the laws and practices we currently have… We do not need more intrusion.
Above and beyond that, it is simply an invasion of my privacy. It may not be illegal, or unconstitutional, but damned if it wouldn’t be insulting. I’m not a child that needs my hand held by papa government, i will police myself on this matter, thank you very much.
