Mostly this. These are way overkill for what we are talking about. You don’t need half the functions that a POS terminal has. Most of these are in the $300 range. I’m pretty sure I could prototype something simpler with an Arduino for about half that. Add in the mass production, and you would be looking at about $50/car plus the server.
Web connectivity would be the easiest method, but opens up all kinds of privacy concerns I should imagine (Big Brother knows when and where yiou might be driving.).
Besides, if we are talking about suspended licences, don’t they take them away when you are charged? No card, no drive. It wouldn’t stop everyone with a suspended licence from getting behind the wheel but it would make it more inconvenient.
But you need much, much more reliability and robustness.
Sounds like you and I need to switch houses.
Those are both very good articles. I think this quote from the latter one really sums the whole problem up:
The article also mentions something we’ve touched on in this thread, that no politician is willing to be the one to say no more money for First Nations people, even if that’s what it takes to fix things eventually.
That is pretty brilliant; you could also use the electronic chip reader for keeping your kids from taking your car when you’re away, or locking old people out from driving after they are no longer able to do it safely.
So it is more or less physically doable; now we just need to get the attitudes adjusted so that people realize that driving is a very serious thing, and not a right at all - you have to keep earning the privilege every day by being a good driver and not endangering everyone else on the road.
I actually doubt that it is physically doable with anything close to an acceptable level of reliability for anything close to an acceptable cost. (If it needs the connection to start, you’re going to be SOL whenever you go anywhere without a connection. If it will start anyways in areas where it can’t connect, you can override it with a few cents worth of aluminum foil.)
Not to mention the immediate black market for drivers’ licenses that can be used to bypass the device.
Car manufacturers cost-reduce things like spare tires and floor mats. You think they’re going to agree to manufacture a unique Canadian model with interlocks and chip readers. They’d be saying bye-bye to Canada in no time.
Well, at least we could all drive a Bricklan.
You sure? As I understand things, the Bricklin didn’t work very well.
Now, the McLauglin Buick, on the other hand… 
Unless you live in a country other than Canada, it won’t do me any good. The Blue Jays’ territory is Canada. All of it. And all Senators games are blacked out online everywhere in Canada if they are broadcasted on ANY CBC station - even if it’s just carried on one in Ottawa - and that includes most games.
Here’s another interesting voice in the Idle No More discussion - Anthony Sowan, a status Cree who has been blogging about how he doesn’t agree with the inequality that’s going on in Canada, and how no First Nations person should be getting more than any other Canadian (I haven’t read his blog yet and I have to run off to work now - I think that’s his message).
I was waiting for a bus at the transit station yesterday after work, and a young couple showed at the same stop. She was bundled up, scarf over her nose and all. He was wearing a t-shirt - no coat, sweater, hat, or anything else for warmth! It was -22! Well, he also had gloves on (and pants), but dude! I know we Canadians are tough, and used to the cold, but this was ridiculous. And, no, he didn’t seem to be cold at all - not shivering, ignoring the heated shelter a few feet away.
Some folks from warmer climes really don’t understand the kind of cold that we get here. For example, my Australian brother-in-law was convinced that he didn’t need a parka, touque, mitts, scarf, boots, etc. when he came to Canada. That was overkill, he said, just keep moving and you’ll be fine.
After a winter in Alberta, he admitted that he was wrong. He had never experienced cold like we have. He’s now equipped with enough winter gear to survive an Arctic winter outdoors, and he advises his Australian friends and relatives who come to visit between October and April that they should bring warm clothing. At all times, he and his wife (my Sis) keep extra warm and winter gear for his Australian friends who visit.
Those Australian friends who do visit always get a kick out of the thermometer on the garage, and visible from the kitchen window, that reads down to -40. They have never seen a thermometer that reads that low. A few who have visited in winter have learned the hard way why we have thermometers that read that low.
Probably drafts amendments to the Income Tax Act. Them folks ain’t human.
That blows my mind - I take that all for granted since I’ve lived with it since I was born. To doubt a Western Canadian on how much protection you need in winter? That’s some hubris. 
I’ve often thought of extending an open invitation to all hot weather Dopers to come and stay with us for a week for free - the only caveat being that you have to come here mid-winter.
Heh, with windchill, northern Ontario got down to -50 C last night. :eek:
Possibly, but I’ll cut him some slack. Having never experienced it, he simply couldn’t believe that such temps were possible, outside maybe the Arctic and Antarctic.
-35 without the wind – still enough to thicken the engine oil, power steering and transmission fluids.
Not to mention freeze beer, wine and bodily fluids…
“It’s colder than a bucket full of penguin shit;
colder than the nipple on a witch’s tit.
It’s colder than the hairs on a polar bear’s ass -
It’s colder than the frost on a champagne glass.”
I’m off to south Québec–AKA, Florida–in a few hours. After freezing the inside of my nostrils yesterday, I’d say not a day too soon!!