this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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as someone who has dealt with over 20 years of pulling victims, alive and dead, from crashes caused by drunks (am firefighter not terrible driver..) I can say this won’t help shit. Just give more data (profit) to corporations and be used in rights violating ways.
It's never actually about safety
Yup, same old "think of the children" excuse. It's a carrot on a string so you don't look at the stick.
Nothing is perfect, but the GSR2 for example has undoubtedly saved many lives. The problem isn't with the technology, but that you don't have any real privacy laws in the US.
Like the EU is any better. Last I checked, France is passing the same kind of bullshit over and over, too.
Oh privacy died in the United States decades ago.
Nobody cares because we're all fat, happy and comfortable.
Once rights are taken, violence is the only way to get them back. History is a wonderful teacher.
There actually is a problem with the technology in this case. It sounds like what they're proposing is eye tracking, which is not reliable with some eye shapes, eye makeup, dry eye, etc. and any markers they use to try to detect drunkenness would also trip for people with legitimate eye problems. Anecdotally, I once drove a Tesla and it locked me out of cruise control because the tracker thought I was falling asleep. Imagine if the car refused to start at all!
Why do you think this will not help?
because drunks find a way to make trouble. they’ll get around the tech glitches in the imperfect deployments. they’ll be alert enough to trick it. etc. they’ll drink while driving and the system won’t see that and the impairment won’t be recognized till its too late. (i’m focused on system concerns because I am also a software engineer and know the realities of large scale tech like this.)
to counter the tech I think the punishments for impaired driving (including cell phone use) should be harsh and without kindness, if you cause another person harm. Federally. With no return of your privileges once convicted.
While I am very much anti-government, if I am not going to be allowed to “follow up” with someone who drank and ran over a family member, etc… then we might as well push the lawmakers to do their jobs with the laws we already have. Not make new ones that are clearly there to profit tech and not save lives.
It is readily proven that punishment does not work as a deterrent mechanism against criminal behavior, including drunk driving. Most crime is done on impulse, with no consideration of future consequences, regardless of how impactful those consequences may be.
The solution is proper public transit and urban design going back to focusing on pedestrian-centric instead of being car-centric. But that's a much larger societal issue and unfortunately people don't like the effort that it requires so they incessantly search for a quick fix "solution" that just puts a bandaid over the problem instead of solving it.
The law is doing its job, the law wasn't created to help people, but to serve the interests of the ruling class. Naive to think these new policies aren't the law doing what it was always intended to do.
while this is a set of fair points, my thoughts were not on punishment as a deterrent; it was on punishment to simply remove them from the road permanently.
i agree safety tech is good. seat belts to drowsy eye tech .. all good. what I don’t see is the tech for drink driving specifically being tenable in a for profit nightmare world we live in. Subscription for the interlocking lapse? car is offline. Etc.
If they could make it offline, serviceable and calibrated as simply as an oil change, and buy once tech… cool.
Removing them from the road is a complicated issue with the stated issues of public transit access being limited. Limiting someone permanently from driving in some places might as well be a death sentence depending on their finances, which is also a big issue with punishment as a deterrent. The point of punishment is inherently to coerce people's actions by way of threatening them with socially harmful consequences enforced by the state to deter them from acting in specific ways as dictated by law. Revoking their license and removing them from the road is the threat that is supposed to deter people from drunk driving. Yet, removing an offender does nothing to prevent more drunk driving from happening, thus not solving the issue at hand, as drunk driving is an impulse decision made in the moment (usually being a result of how convenient and accessible alternative means of traveling to the intended destination are) and not an action that is made out of habit or direct choice, though there are exceptions to this but those are also much larger issues usually, like mental health and such.
That's all a much larger discussion, though, and let's not digress.
The issue at hand is with privacy and data collection with cameras that are recording in modern cars with onboard computers connected to cellular networks via SIM cards. I would not put it past modern, capitalist driven companies to not utilize this for those ends under the guise of it being for "public safety".
They can claim it is offline but so long as the vehicle computer that it is recording to is connected, which most modern ones are, then it is a privacy vulnerability risk that I absolutely believe modern companies will abuse; the most probable excuse being "analytics data collection for improving the device operations". There are ways around it, like disabling the modem, but that puts unnecessary burden on the consumer which may void warranties and the like.
All that does is create the problem of driving unlicensed, so now you imprison nonviolent offenders (assuming they aren't convicted of vehicular homicide type of charges).
I understand the sentiment, but the law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head here very quickly.
what’s nonviolent about having harmed someone while choosing to drive impaired?
also i 100% agree public transportation should be improved too.
but it’s disgusting how many times I see folks who have multiple accidents causing harm to others and are still allowed to drive.
Last year I drove my parent's car which is equipped with one of these cameras that determine if the driver is distracted or dozing. And I can say for certain that it works. I honestly wish that my car had this sort of a system.
I view this tech like a padlock. Sure some people will do whatever they can to get around it, but it keeps honest people honest. If it can reduce deaths on the road from drunk and tired drivers even by a little bit then isn't that worth it?
I'm not sure what you mean by not being able to follow up... Driving drunk and killing someone is already punished harshly, and you can even follow up civilly; it's called a wrongful death suit.
Honest people don't need the government to spy on them to not drive drunk though?
What about their proposed solution requires any of this data to leave the vehicle?
The law says nothing about keeping the data in the vehicle, so it will 100% be sent outside the vehicle. Most modern cars already transmit your data so why would they change anything?
You are right. Because the law says nothing about the requirements. They haven't decided on them yet. Come back when they propose something.
And so long as they aren't proposing privacy protections, I will continue to raise a stink about it. Modern cars already share way too much of our private data.
If the law says nothing then you can 100% count on this data being sold to third parties. Again, they're already doing it. They aren't going to stop unless the government explicitly stops them.
Also, they haven't decided yet? The law was passed in 2021. It only comes into effect in 2027. This isn't a proposal, is the law right now.
The law that was passed just requires the NHTSA to create requirements. The law itself does not mandate that auto manufacturers do anything relating to this (it might have other items for them but I didn't read the full bill). The NHTSA says that the technology that they are looking at is just not ready/accurate enough to be enforced.
100% auto manufacturers are selling that data. As you said there is no law stopping them. We should fight for data privacy rights across the country. But that is not really what this article is talking about. They are talking about government surveillance which we should also fight against. But I doubt that auto manufacturers are just going to put a government backdoor in just because.
It doesn't work on everyone. These systems have trouble with certain eye shapes, eye makeup, etc.
I think the NHTSA is more looking at detecting alcohol on the driver's breath passively. But yes, there will always be cases where technology does not work optimally.
I rented two different modern (2015-2016) Mercedes SUVs. They both had systems that detected tired/inattentive driving. I was neither but after several hours on the road both vehicles would alert that it was time to take a break with a nice little coffee icon. I was conversing with a passenger, driving fine, not wandering between lanes/etc.. The first time I kind of doubted myself but subsequent notifications both the passenger and myself were agreeing that we had no idea what it was upset about.
The newer car had another sensor that would get upset if your grip on the steering wheel got too light. That was kind of neat to see how much leeway it'd give you before it got antsy.
Probably because you were driving for a few hours. That makes sense. You may not feel it but driving is an active task that takes more effort than just sitting in a chair.
I would much rather have this system have false positives rather than not have it at all.
I am not willing to trade a modicum of safety for one of the greatest privacy and ownership violations of all time.