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Congress' new mandate to carmakers: Figure out a way to stop drunk driving
- reducesuffering 5y agoStartup Idea: Mobile app using computer vision to roughly determine BAC based on facial and optic features. No one has a breathalyzer but everyone has a phone, so people will be able to get a more objective measure of their inebriation without drunkenly doing math of how many drinks they had. If a cop can estimate it with a flashlight, a phone can too.
- tasomething2 5y agoThe flashlight thing is a Horizontal Nystagmus Test, which I don't think works for passive detection. You have to follow the light with your eyes to trigger the twitching at a particular angle. I suppose you could force the test before starting the car. It's also not a terribly reliable test.
- reducesuffering 5y agoYou can have the app indicate instructions for following light. This isn't about hard requirements for starting a car, imo that's quite dystopian. This would be better for heuristics for people so that they have some indicator they should not be driving and to seek out alternative means of transport.
- smoldesu 5y agoSounds like a fun drinking game to me. Who wants to come out behind the bar and play 'fool the AI app' for a few hours?
- silisili 5y agoI mean, I'm all for anything within reason than can prevent DUI, but in my travels, cell phone use is a much, much more pervasive problem that is only poised to get worse. It makes me concerned it's flying under the radar. I'm not attempting to straw man or anything, but curious if others feel the same way.
- ck2 5y agoWon't work on interstates but if they are crossing solid white lines like bicycle lanes on modern roads they they are either drunk, high, or starring at their smartphone. Some people seem to even purposely straddle the bicycle lane line as some kind of subconscious auto-guidance while using their smartphone while driving which should be a go-immediately-to-jail offense before they murder someone.
- echelon 5y agoMaybe a system that detects erratic driving, regardless of the cause -- sleep/drowsiness, alcohol, phone use, shaving, makeup, book reading (I have seen this!) -- can inform the driver to be more careful. That seems to strike a balance between safety and privacy.
- silisili 5y agoYou know, I was sitting here thinking on it and came up with eye tracking, but I like your idea way more. You're right, both would drive erratically and probably easily detected by the PCM/CPU.
- rad_gruchalski 5y agoDon’t forget talking to passengers, playing with a touchscreen, looking sideways at accidents, clipping toenails, looking back at kids, playing with gps, eating, drinking, smoking. Oh, and call the cop immediately while at it.
- jdavis703 5y agoDo we have existing tech that can disable cellphones? I suppose the driver’s seat could be wrapped in a faraday cage. Perhaps drivers could request an exception, with tougher penalties for exempted drivers who get busted using a handheld device while driving.
- ryantgtg 5y agoOn iOS, if your device is connected to the car’s Bluetooth, then you can’t use the device unless you’re using it hands-free (despite research showing that hands-free is just as distracting as holding a phone), or unless you’ve disabled this protective feature on your device.
- rzz3 5y agoAs a person who does not drive drunk, I don’t want my car monitoring me.
- betwixthewires 5y agoThis is a terrible idea. There's a reason existing interlock systems don't shut off your car. We have a silicon shortage that is affecting availability of cars and congress wants to require more silicon in cars? It's stuff like this that's been happening with cars over the years that makes me deliberately continue to drive older cars exclusively. I wouldn't buy a brand new car if I were a billionaire.
- pcurve 5y agoMaybe redirect focus on full autonomous driving. So we can safely use phonees car
- recursivedoubts 5y agounless of course you just want people to die https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
- stevenalowe 5y agoWow. Totally not the responsibility of the car or the car maker.
- ddingus 5y agoYup. And it's a very disturbing trend to regulate outside the well established due process, equal protection and other aspects of law.
- jedberg 5y ago> Abuelsamid said breathalyzers aren't a practical solution because many people would object to being forced to blow into a tube every time they get into the car. Also those are super easy to defeat. People who have them usually just get someone else to blow in it or just blow into a bottle and then squeeze the bottle into the tube.
- serf 5y ago>Also those are super easy to defeat. people have defeated driver awareness systems with flat-printed pictures of their face. I don't know if defeat-hardness is a particularly good metric for these kind of systems. Very few systems on a modern automobile haven't been defeated in some way/shape/form. I think it's more valuable to consider the convenience or life-altering-aspect of the consideration -- few people mind nor even notice their photo being taken, forcing folks to breath into a breathalyzer changes their activities and behavior ; their routine is now disrupted, that's a hard sell. ( I hate additional surveillance options, espescially given the idea of the 'always connected automobile'; it's a system that is prime for abuse by authorities. My consideration of these features in no way implies that i'm happy about either implementation. )
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- hirundo 5y agoCongress' new mandate to carmakers: Increase surveillance of drivers According to this other current HN story, this mandate aligns well with carmakers' plans: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29182115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29182115
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- teeray 5y agoCool, so people will just drive drunk in old cars now
- tsumnia 5y agoThat actually makes me think about how smart we want our cars. I know there's a subset of people that strongly dislike smart TVs for roughly the same reasons.
- ddingus 5y agoI don't want my car to be smart, nor my TV. In the case of the car, it's dependence and having options. A simple car is a car I can count on even when times are difficult. And I've got a lot of agency on how I manage all of that. With the TV, it's simple privacy and utility.
- teeray 5y agoYep, “dumb and reliable” please. I’d hate for my car to decide I’ve become intoxicated based on some brain dead AI and shut down when it’s -20F with no cell service.
- mrtweetyhack 5y agoCongress is full of stupid
- jim-jim-jim 5y agoBut touch screens are still totally kosher.
- azinman2 5y agoInteresting to me that the comments here are so negative, but on anything with self driving cars everyone wants it now to prevent deaths. If DUIs are the #1 source of car deaths (per the article), why wouldn’t we want that removed?
- drewcoo 5y agoFrom the article, 30% of US traffic fatalities involve alcohol. I'd wager that nearly 100% of them involve humans driving. Note that neither claim actually shows cause.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoGuns cause a lot of deaths too. And it's not like gun control will be as majorly intrusive as this proposed technology will be.
- azinman2 5y agoI don’t understand what your point is. First, you can make legitimate claims as to why you should own a gun. That’s not the case for driving drunk. Second, as a society we should be minimizing preventable deaths where reasonably feasible.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago>as a society we should be minimizing preventable deaths where reasonably feasible. Only up to a point. We don't go round putting people in bubble wrap to keep them safe. We don't expect the government to station a policeman inside every house. But the lack of gun control in the USA is ludicrous as demonstrated by every mass shooting. Back to cars, why not limit every car out there to 40 miles per hour? fatality rates would plummet.
- gameswithgo 5y agoid rather have drunk people around than gun enthusiasts
- tssva 5y ago
- FridayoLeary 5y agothis is a terrible idea. I want a car not my own personal nanny. Drink driving is a problem but we have to draw a line somewhere. What next? Will the car monitor music that might make us drive too fast? Will it shut off if we are not concentrating enough on the road? How many more stupid anti driver legislation can lawmakers come up with. This madness must be stopped.
- derekp7 5y agoI would like to know if current advanced safety tech such as lane centering and collision avoidance significantly cuts down on highway deaths due to driving impairment? Since these technologies are already starting to become standard, once they get more reliable would that itself make accidents plummet? I'm not talking about full self driving, but just the currently available assistance technologies that work 95% of the time (and if they improve to work 99.9999% of the time).
- wanderingmind 5y agoDUI of alcohol or mobile phones is a public heath hazard. A regulation mandating car manufacturers to throttle the speed and acceleration if the vehicle swerves or cross solid white lines can go a long way in saving innocent lives.
- coffeefirst 5y agoIn theory. On the other hand, the only times I've ever swerved was to avoid something in the road. And if you've ever driven in icy conditions—it's not ideal but it happens—any kind of automatic correction is dangerous. There are also plenty of circumstances where it's okay to cross solid white lines. So the devil is in the implementation details. How sensitive is it? How does it determine the difference between a driver who's avoiding an emergency versus about to cause one? What does it do when it thinks something is wrong? Could there be a good version that informs unsafe drivers that they're not okay? Sure. There could also be a lot of bad versions.
- mercy_dude 5y agoSmall part of me always distrusts these sleaziest people in Congress, I sincerely hope they are not doing it for making more use of surveillance and tracking and handing over the data to security apparatus of the state.
- frugalmail 5y agoWould be great if they automatically get a point on their license if this registers repeat drunk driving attempts. Get these negligent, self-centered scum off the road permanently.
- tasomething2 5y agoI agree for repeat offenders. Drunk driving, though, is a particularly tough thing to stop. It's not typically sober "joe" that decides to drive. The decision is usually made by someone not in a great state to make it.
- aejnsn 5y agoTerrific. More stuff that breaks.
- vrc 5y agoMandating something like an interlock would work. But false positives would be absolutely infuriating and possibly life threatening. Imagine having to call the police or similar to breathalyze or do a blood draw to then unlock your car. Just ask people trying to get out from under DUI convictions how unreliable those devices are.
- swayvil 5y agoWe will need to intensify the mass-surveillance. For our health and safety. Obviously.
- Pxtl 5y agoGo after municipalities. Big cities don't have half the drunk driving problems you get in suburbia or even worse rural settings, because they have transit and walkability. The root problem of drunk driving is that driving is the only option for many people and that's a city planning problem. More density, more walkability, more transit, less drunk driving. Also greener, healthier living.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoTime for the cars to just drive themselves so we can be free to read a book, watch a movie, even have a beer etc. Instead of stressing out trying to drive with all this control. It would give an amazing amount of useful time back to our lives. I used to hang out at work for hours while totally tired just because I was dreading that horrible rush-hour drive home. I really hate driving now. 5km/h over the limit is an insta-fine in some areas, where the entire road is monitored. When I still drove I used to watch the speedo more than the road sometimes which can't be the intention. And now the car needs to validate my state of awareness? So I have to focus on looking awake and perky as well. I really can't wait for self driving cars. Luckily right now where I live I don't need or own one. I hope I never will need to own a car again :) Ps I never drink and drive but this method will probably cause false positives and cause distractions. It's just time to take this full circle IMO. Computers aren't perfect at driving but neither are people.
- akersten 5y agoI'm in favor of this as long as they introduce the same mandate for gun manufacturers: figure out a way to reduce murders. Either both mandates make sense or neither does. I think you can probably tell which camp I'm in.
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- jamesvandyne 5y agoJapan used to have a bad drunk driving problem until they changed the laws to be mostly zero tolerance. If your caught it's an automatic 90-day suspension of your license. Over 0.25mg and it could be up to 2 years. That's excluding potential fines and imprisonment. Oh, and any adults in the car and or the person who owns the car can also be held liable. Technical monitoring is one solution. Making you calculate if driving is potentially worth, at a minimum 3-months of no driving, quickly makes you decide it's not worth the risk is another. That said, you'd think potentially running someone over would be enough risk for to avoid driving under the influence, but it's obviously not.
- curryst 5y agoJapan has very different city structures, iirc. The presence of good public transportation is a big one. There's a considerable portion of the US where your options are drive drunk, pay $$$ for an Uber, or sleep next to your car (people have gotten DUIs for sleeping in the car). There are also areas where Uber doesn't exist at 2am, so your options are drive drunk or sleep next to your car. Japan also has this neat concept of tiny hotels, where they stack beds almost like the drawers at a morgue. They're super cheap though, which gives Japan's drinkers yet another option if they don't want to drive. In the US, I've never been able to rent anything but a full room + bathroom, and you'd still have to solve the issue of how you get to the motel. Japan has to convince their drinkers to sleep in a tiny hotel or take the train instead of driving. The US is trying to convince a drunk person they'd rather sleep on the ground than try to drive home. I am not surprised that Japan has better compliance rates than the US; it's a much smaller ask.
- jamesvandyne 5y agoThe Japanese country side isn't too different than the US. Sure there's trains, but not an extensive network ala Tokyo, and you drive everywhere. The way they handle the issue is "daikou taxi", which is a service from the taxi providers. If you've been drinking, you call them, they send a taxi with 2 drivers. You get in the taxi, and the other driver drives your car home. Introducing a service like this would help reduce DUIs, I think. Having stricter laws about also helps avoid people making the decision to drive somewhere, where they know they're going to drink, in the first place. Instead they may opt to take a cab, find a designated driver etc, drink closer to home etc..
- squidhunter 5y agoFixing drunk driving is NOT an automotive technology problem. It’s an urban design problem. Fixing Americas idiotic zoning laws will do more than any technological solution. It’s hard to fathom how much space we’ve given up to our obscene level of car dependence. The first city in America that converts a considerable portion of their urban core into a car free zone will net a higher influx of talented workers than any Amazon HQ2…
- Igelau 5y ago> cameras make sure a driver is watching the road, and they look for signs of drowsiness, loss of consciousness or impairment. > If signs are spotted, the cars will warn the driver, and if the behavior persists, the car would turn on its hazard lights, slow down and pull to the side of the road. What could possibly go wrong in the middle of the night on an under construction highway with barriers on both sides and no shoulder for miles? If that sounds contrived, you've never experienced the joys of PennDOT.
- ncmncm 5y agoIf they want to have an effect on mortality rates, they would better make food producers figure out a way to get people ingesting less sugar. American children are actually getting cirrhosis! It's the single greatest health crisis of our age, no exaggeration. Over half of Americans have symptoms of Metabolic Syndrome, what they used to call "fatty liver disease", a precursor to cirrhosis and numerous other ills. Now that we know saturated fat is not only totally harmless, but important to health, maybe stop promoting low-fat diets, and dis-incentivize advertising "low-fat" and "non-fat" food, which is typically laced with sugar instead. And, maybe make promoting sugar without fiber to minors a felony?
- ddingus 5y agoGood grief!! We've moved into a definite era of attempting control through technology, and what defines the "era" is the level of aggression and overt strong arming of responsibility onto companies. The very highly undesirable part is this will all likely end up working a lot like banking rules do. The companies set policy and enforce it technically, nicely circumventing many limits associated with government and law. Lessig: CODE Here it comes! CODE and tech as law. I do not see this ending well at all, and it's not going to be pleasant. Edit: Also, "drunk driving" is the "save the children" type blanket cover argument for many other reasons behind this initiative.
- gethoht 5y agoProvide adequate public transportation. That's it. We won't do it because America.
- anshumankmr 5y agoOne of the biggest tragedies of modern society is how much of a car based society we are. This isn’t a US problem but a global one. I am not saying there is no need for cars, but having a great public transportation system would alleviate so many problems especially this. That being said , some cities are better at this than others.