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You know it's totally feasible to make a car that won't turn on for drunk people. Should those systems be installed on all cars, in pursuit of creating systems

You know it's totally feasible to make a car that won't turn on for drunk people. Should those systems be installed on all cars, in pursuit of creating systems that don't permit stupid actions? Maybe such a breathalyzer interlock could be installed on your workstation too. After all, your systems and processes should prevent you from stupid things.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cle 6y ago
Don’t be absurd. Of course there are costs and tradeoffs to guardrails, and you have to balance the tradeoffs based on your requirements. This person had to publicly apologize to their customers. One or two low-cost guardrails could have prevented it and would probably have been worth the cost.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Is that absurd? Systems should prevent mistakes, unless the part needed to implement that is a hundred dollars or so? That seems like quite the walk-back. Courts order alcoholics to install these things, they're established available technology. What tradeoffs are you balancing here?
  - TomVDB 6y ago
    It's a free website to keep scoreboards. Not a mission critical nuclear missile launcher. (But if your mission critical system relies on that scoreboard website, that's on you...)
emodendroket 6y ago
Honestly not a bad idea to install the interlocks on all cars.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  Yes. I could finally start a failed interlock story blog.
  - necovek 6y ago
    Or a blog on being unable to drive your kid to an emergency room because you just finished a glass of wine over dinner. A problem with devices of that type is that they only test for a potential source of inability to drive safely. What we want is to test for an inability to drive safely. And while one is easy and might give some quick wins, the drawbacks scare me too much.
    - Agentlien 6y ago
      Being unable to take your car when your child needs to go to the ER would be terrible. Actually getting in the car while under the influence such of stress and alcohol sounds worse. I know someone who had a glass of wine just before her daughter needed to be brought to the hospital. This was just two days ago. She simply concluded she could not drive. Luckily, she was able to get a taxi.
      - kungtotte 6y ago
        Maybe we should, as a society, invest in taxis equipped with medical facilities and trained personnel so that they can provide first response medical treatment while on the way to the ER. I'm sure that would save a lot of lives. An ambulatory medical service, if you will.
        nullsense 6y ago
        Uber Meds.
        Agentlien 6y ago
        Sometimes ambulances are occupied and taking a taxi goes faster. Especially if it's something which isn't immediately life threatening. I once dislocated my shoulder while on a large trampoline and was unable to get up from my hands and knees due to the intense pain whenever the trampoline wobbled. The ambulance was redirected to more serious injuries three times. I was stuck in that position waiting for two hours before it arrived.
KronisLV 6y ago
Replace a breathalyzer with something that's less intruisive (like a camera with AI that would observe the person, AI with thermal imaging or air quality sensors, or another possibly-fictional-yet-believable piece of technology) and suddenly, in my eyes, the technology in this thought experiment becomes a no brainer. If there was more of a cultural pressure against drunk driving and actual mechanisms to prevent it that aren't too difficult to maintain and utilize, things like the Daikou services ( https://www.quora.com/How-effective-is-the-Japanese-daikou-service https://www.quora.com/How-effective-is-the-Japanese-daikou-s... ) would pop up and take care of the other logistical problems of getting your car home. And the world would be all the better for it, because of less drunk driving and accidents.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  I think a camera is far more intrusive than a breathalyzer.
- q6fqa 6y ago
  Mercedes[1] has drowsiness detector, it observes the driver through sensors. It's freakishly accurate. [1] https://media.daimler.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/ATTENTION-ASSIST-Drowsiness-detection-system-warns-drivers-to-prevent-them-falling-asleep-momentarily.xhtml?oid=9361586 https://media.daimler.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/ATTEN...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cle 6y ago

Don’t be absurd. Of course there are costs and tradeoffs to guardrails, and you have to balance the tradeoffs based on your requirements. This person had to publicly apologize to their customers. One or two low-cost guardrails could have prevented it and would probably have been worth the cost.

bigbubba 6y ago
Is that absurd? Systems should prevent mistakes, unless the part needed to implement that is a hundred dollars or so? That seems like quite the walk-back. Courts order alcoholics to install these things, they're established available technology. What tradeoffs are you balancing here?
- TomVDB 6y ago
  It's a free website to keep scoreboards. Not a mission critical nuclear missile launcher. (But if your mission critical system relies on that scoreboard website, that's on you...)

emodendroket 6y ago

Honestly not a bad idea to install the interlocks on all cars.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Yes. I could finally start a failed interlock story blog.
- necovek 6y ago
  Or a blog on being unable to drive your kid to an emergency room because you just finished a glass of wine over dinner. A problem with devices of that type is that they only test for a potential source of inability to drive safely. What we want is to test for an inability to drive safely. And while one is easy and might give some quick wins, the drawbacks scare me too much.
  - Agentlien 6y ago
    Being unable to take your car when your child needs to go to the ER would be terrible. Actually getting in the car while under the influence such of stress and alcohol sounds worse. I know someone who had a glass of wine just before her daughter needed to be brought to the hospital. This was just two days ago. She simply concluded she could not drive. Luckily, she was able to get a taxi.
    - kungtotte 6y ago
      Maybe we should, as a society, invest in taxis equipped with medical facilities and trained personnel so that they can provide first response medical treatment while on the way to the ER. I'm sure that would save a lot of lives. An ambulatory medical service, if you will.
      - nullsense 6y ago
        Uber Meds.
      - Agentlien 6y ago
        Sometimes ambulances are occupied and taking a taxi goes faster. Especially if it's something which isn't immediately life threatening. I once dislocated my shoulder while on a large trampoline and was unable to get up from my hands and knees due to the intense pain whenever the trampoline wobbled. The ambulance was redirected to more serious injuries three times. I was stuck in that position waiting for two hours before it arrived.

KronisLV 6y ago

Replace a breathalyzer with something that's less intruisive (like a camera with AI that would observe the person, AI with thermal imaging or air quality sensors, or another possibly-fictional-yet-believable piece of technology) and suddenly, in my eyes, the technology in this thought experiment becomes a no brainer. If there was more of a cultural pressure against drunk driving and actual mechanisms to prevent it that aren't too difficult to maintain and utilize, things like the Daikou services ( https://www.quora.com/How-effective-is-the-Japanese-daikou-service https://www.quora.com/How-effective-is-the-Japanese-daikou-s... ) would pop up and take care of the other logistical problems of getting your car home. And the world would be all the better for it, because of less drunk driving and accidents.

Schiendelman 6y ago
I think a camera is far more intrusive than a breathalyzer.
q6fqa 6y ago
Mercedes[1] has drowsiness detector, it observes the driver through sensors. It's freakishly accurate. [1] https://media.daimler.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/ATTENTION-ASSIST-Drowsiness-detection-system-warns-drivers-to-prevent-them-falling-asleep-momentarily.xhtml?oid=9361586 https://media.daimler.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/ATTEN...