I could see an argument for younger drivers if it was perfect and unobtrusive and free which it isnt.
Nanny state wise, its not only about protecting the actual driver from themselves - its about protecting the people they hit.
Otara
Modern cars only exist because of the State, do you really think private industry would have created roads maintained well enough for a modern entry-level sedan to drive on to virtually everyone’s house in the country?
I don’t see how any regulation the State feels like imposing is really fairly criticized as “nanny-state” shenanigans when we’re talking about cars. Cars are a product of centralized states that spend a lot of public money on infrastructure.
& until about 48 hrs ago, Jerry Sandusky could have passed a background check to coach Little League, PeeWee Football, or any other sport the kids play, yet we now know he was doing unspeakable acts for years before he was caught. In other words, there are far more people committing crimes than who have been caught.
Osama bin Laden & crew killed ≈ 3000 over 10 years ago & the US has spent billions going after him. Drunk driver have killed more than three times that number in 2001 & each & every year since then; yet we haven’t spent even 1% going after these terrorists. Yes, I called them terrorists! After all, the Wikipedia definition includes, in part, “terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), … and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)”. I might die in a ‘traditional’ terrorist attack, but then again, I might get struck by lightning, or fall into an earthquake-created crevice; none of which I consider probable & none of which I take extensive precautions against. The extent of my precautions there is to not go running through an open field while holding a metal pole in the middle of a thunderstorm.
I have a far higher likelihood of being killed (or injured) by a drunk driver, & yes, I have altered my behavior in an attempt to avoid them; whether that means starting/ending my evening earlier, or only partying where I sleep (or in my neighborhood) on New Year’s Eve & Super Bowl Sunday I do live in (some) fear of them.
This is an inexpensive way to save a lot of lives.
Yes; I am unwilling to be inconvenienced, because being inconvenienced could mean my car not starting at unpredictable times, through no fault of mine, and since I use the car to go places I can’t get to by public transportation or bicycle, or in bad weather, or when I’m taking my dog, then no. This is one more system to maintain, and there are already too many of those on the car of today.
Also that accident figure? It’s not 50%. It’s more like 30% attributable to alcohol. And they weren’t really caused by alcohol, they were caused by bad driving, which is even harder to eliminate. While I would love to see all bad drivers, drunk and otherwise (texting, hung-over, clueless, psychopathic), taken off the roads, that’s not gonna happen.
Right, so you value your car being able to start consistently more than you value the lives of ~10000 Americans a year. What I’m saying is that’s exactly the reason I knew this idea would never fly. Cause isn’t really provable so I don’t believe the government truly gets into cause, they just say any accident in which someone dies and someone involved in the accident has alcohol in their system is “alcohol related.” It’s not really possible to know definitively what “caused” the accident.
The 30% number is correct by the way, it looks like the 50% number I was thinking about was for total drug related traffic fatalities (32% alcohol related and 18% other drug related, some obviously also involving alcohol.)
No, sorry. I’d feel the same way.
No, because that would be irrational and reactionary. That isn’t to say I wouldn’t be devastated, but if we’re making law, we should be more objective and less anecdotal.
Drunk driving is terrible and there are certainly better methods for holding those accountable who do it, but as a person who has never drank, I’d find it ridiculous that I’d need a breathalyzer to start my car. Operating on extremes doesn’t help us, overall, as there are far more people who don’t drive drunk, than those who do.
In extreme cases, a car being unable to start can lead to lost lives. (e.g. someone needs to get to medical attention quickly, or someone needs to get out of a dangerous situation) It can also lead to other things, like losing one’s job, that rank higher than mere “inconvenience.”
Like some others, I’d be in favor of this sort of thing if, and only if, I coult count on it being accurate enough to keep the people off the road who shouldn’t be driving (no way to get around it) without false positives.
Although I suspect (just as a WAG) that cellphone-related accidents are a bigger problem in the areas I drive than are alcohol-related accidents.
I don’t deny a car not working is a big deal in some circumstances, but my whole point is just that in general life is full of risks and you can only do so much about it. I’ve never been a fan of government going overboard to protect us from those risks. Simply put, society has made a collective decision on how we feel about drunk driving. Attitudes have changed, in my youth drunk driving was 50/50 likely to get the police officer to tell you to “drive home safely and sleep it off” versus getting you arrested. Now? It’s just about always straight to jail (and the police get in huge trouble if they are caught not doing this.) The penalties are also far larger, in many States when I was younger first offense DUI was a traffic offense (not considered a true criminal violation.) Now, with Wisconsin finally entering the 21st century and making first offense DUI a misdemeanor, all 50 states treat it as a serious first offense crime.
What I find interesting is people can be reasonable when we’re talking about an onerous restriction on driving that would undeniably be to the public benefit. People here see the suggestion and go “you know, that might work, but it’s just not right to do that to everyone in the country against their will.” But many more people on these boards are all for extreme gun control measures, and many of the arguments are essentially the same. Cars just don’t scare liberals as much as guns.
Life is full of risks, as you said. Whether my car has this thing has absolutely zero effect on the lives of 10,000 Americans, and as a matter of fact I DON’T value them more than my convenience. Ten thousand people I don’t know? They are abstract.
I don’t agree that this would be to the public benefit. I think banning all private automobiles might be, though. (I don’t support that, either, but I think it would be for the public benefit and I’d be more willing to go along with that.)
I think they do this because, if they don’t, they’re too easy for a drunk driver to circumvent. This site says that, if you don’t take the breathalyzer test while driving, it makes your headlights and taillights flash, and your horn sound, but it doesn’t say anything about it actually stopping the car.
No. I don’t drink, and neither does my wife. Why should I have to buy and maintain a piece of equipment that is completely unnecessary?
I don’t back over people either, but my Prius has a rearview camera. Seat belts and airbags are things I didn’t specifically pay for, although I suppose I did in some indirect way.
I wasn’t advocating for it. Also we already keep track of you through your cell phone.
The rear-view camera serves a similar function to your mirrors, but is completely passive. To draw a rough parallel to the topic, you’d have to have a situation where you can’t reverse the vehicle until you manually activate the rear-view camera. Imagine how tedious and silly that would be.
Nope. I don’t use a smart phone (not for privacy reasons; I just don’t care for 'em) and my cheap little phone doesn’t have GPS. Nor is it generally on unless I have just activated it to check my voice mail or initiate a call.
The problem with this argument is that it’s an emotional one, not a reasoned cost-benefit analysis.
How many lives will this plan save? Well, we don’t really know. Obviously, some people will still be able to disable or trick them, and will drive drunk. It’s probably reasonable to assume that the most habitual drunk drivers will be most likely to figure out a workaround, so it might not do very much at all.
How much will the devices cost? This page from one company that offers them charges $2.50/day, and a professional system like the police would use costs several hundreds of dollars. Sure, you could bring that down with volume, but even if you bring it down to $20/car, you’re looking at an annual expense of around $300 million (based on annual US auto sales around 15 million vehicles). Would that money be better used to pay for more police to patrol the streets? More police would help protect us from other reckless drivers as well as drunk ones.
Or, maybe we should just increase the tax on alcohol? That will reduce drinking, and without any wasted effort installing devices in the cars of people who don’t drive. And an increased alcohol tax doesn’t leave anyone unable to get to work some random morning. I’m really just scratching the surface, but it’s not hard to come up with dozens of plans to reduce drunk driving that are cheaper to implement, more effective, and have fewer unfortunate side effects.
It’s easy to say “OMG won’t you think of the drunk driving victims”, or to claim that worries about malfunctions and inefficiency are callous, but appeals to emotion won’t make this proposed plan a good idea. There are lots of problems in the world. Lots of dangers and injustices. We should be directing our efforts toward the best solutions and this really isn’t one of them.
The daily price is for systems with active monitoring, unless you’re under a court order you wouldn’t need such a system.
I realize that. I provided that information because I found it and considered it interesting, though not particularly relevant to figuring out how much a universal roll-out would cost. None of my argument is based on that price.
I didn’t read all of the responses, but I agree with ftg. I don’t drive while drunk and don’t need a breathalyzer in my car. It’s nanny-state horseshit to require one in all cars. Mandate them for drivers who have been convicted for DUI, but don’t impose them on the innocent.