NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
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Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#2A handful of years back the NHTSA announced that all new cars would have to have a vehicle to vehicle 5.7-5.9 GHz system for announcing vehicle position, velocity, and cryptographically signed ID. Luckily the dates just came and went and the manufacturers didn't do it. The NHTSA folded and eventually the FCC gave that ~hundreds MHz of 5 GHz band back to wifi.
Hopefully that's what will happen here. The NTSB only recommends things to the NHTSA. So this proposal hasn't even gotten as far as the above example.
Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#3They're also recommending speed limiters that essentially force you to follow the limits.
I wonder if we'd see speed limits increase if everyone followed them as-posted? Because right now there seems to be this assumption from both sides that everyone is speeding, so they post 70 because they want 80, or 25 because they want 30, etc.
While DUI is a legitimate problem, it isn't clear to me though what exactly the NTSB is proposing here? They have those "breathe into" systems (interlocks), but they have hygiene and maintenance limitations. Unclear how driver monitoring systems can determine if someone is DUI (in particular when you look at edge cases, like disabled drivers that move atypically while still be authorized to drive).
PS - I suspect, but cannot show data, that existing upcoming safety technology may decrease DUI caused fatalities in particular "driverless" automations like lane centering, automatic lane-changes, and autonomous navigation. While I don't consider this technology mature, it may still be safer than an inebriated driver.
Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#4So-called "self-driving" systems, or the more-accurately-named lane-keeping and distance-keeping systems, may or may not be safer than human drivers driving equivalent cars, but they are much safer than alcohol-impaired drivers.
The idea of having to blow into a tube every time I start my car seems outrageous, of course, but so many deaths every year in the US are due to alcohol-impaired driving that I'd almost be willing to support it.
Of course, given that they're only calling for new cars to be so equipped, we'd be looking at a very long period of time in which people prone to driving under the influence would refuse to buy newer cars, justifying it by saying that the systems don't understand how their alcohol tolerance works.
Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#5So-called "self-driving" systems, or the more-accurately-named lane-keeping and distance-keeping systems, may or may not be safer than human drivers driving equivalent cars, but they are much safer than alcohol-impaired drivers. The idea of having to blow into a tube every time I start my car seems outrageous, of course, but so many deaths every year in the US are due to alcohol-impaired driving that I'd almost be wi…
To be clear: this article is about passive detection systems that use e.g. infrared and touch sensors; it's not the blow-in-a-tube kind of system a judge might order to be installed in the car of a habitual DUI driver.
Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#6They're also recommending speed limiters that essentially force you to follow the limits. I wonder if we'd see speed limits increase if everyone followed them as-posted? Because right now there seems to be this assumption from both sides that everyone is speeding, so they post 70 because they want 80, or 25 because they want 30, etc. While DUI is a legitimate problem, it isn't clear to me though what exactly the NTSB…
Even worse the only way to get them to raise limits (at least in parts of the USA) is to show that everyone dives over the limit In a section of road.
Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#7They're also recommending speed limiters that essentially force you to follow the limits. I wonder if we'd see speed limits increase if everyone followed them as-posted? Because right now there seems to be this assumption from both sides that everyone is speeding, so they post 70 because they want 80, or 25 because they want 30, etc. While DUI is a legitimate problem, it isn't clear to me though what exactly the NTSB…
On first blush I thought the same thing - what, you're going to have to blow into some tube to start your car? I can understand this for people who have been convicted of drunk driving, but for everyone? But looking around it appears they have some mechanism by which they can determine with some degree of accuracy via touch, and it's integrated into the ignition button on a car:
https://www.dadss.org/touch-technology
They also appear to have other approaches as well, but this one seems like it would be almost transparent to the operation of the car.
Honestly I have zero objection to something that worked in this fashion - I suspect it would save a ton of lives. I think the knee jerk reaction that it's somehow a big brother kind of thing is a bit disingenuous, like saying "The government shouldn't interfere with my ability to drive drunk and potentially hurt people". I think this is much more akin to when wearing seat belts became the law - people moaned and complained but at the end of the day it's better for both themselves and others in the vehicle.
The speeding thing is completely unrelated and really shouldn't be mixed into this - how about solving one problem at a time well, instead of lumping a bunch together and solving none. I've had friends badly injured by drunk drivers, and in all the cases the drunk driver wasn't exceeding the posted speed limit. In one they just smashed into a parked car and hit them on the sidewalk, in one they swerved into oncoming traffic and collided head on, and the last drove into a store at full speed. Thankfully these were three different people I know, and not one incredibly unlucky person. ;)
Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#8They're also recommending speed limiters that essentially force you to follow the limits. I wonder if we'd see speed limits increase if everyone followed them as-posted? Because right now there seems to be this assumption from both sides that everyone is speeding, so they post 70 because they want 80, or 25 because they want 30, etc. While DUI is a legitimate problem, it isn't clear to me though what exactly the NTSB…
> PS - I suspect, but cannot show data, that existing upcoming safety technology may decrease DUI caused fatalities in particular "driverless" automations like lane centering, automatic lane-changes, and autonomous navigation. While I don't consider this technology mature, it may still be safer than an inebriated driver.
While current self-driving technology is obviously unsafe when given total control, I think it could be turned into an extraordinarily effective safety system: program it to only take accident avoidance measures and low-level corrections like lane centering, and crank up the thresholds so it only gets invoked in clearly dangerous scenarios.
Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#9A handful of years back the NHTSA announced that all new cars would have to have a vehicle to vehicle 5.7-5.9 GHz system for announcing vehicle position, velocity, and cryptographically signed ID. Luckily the dates just came and went and the manufacturers didn't do it. The NHTSA folded and eventually the FCC gave that ~hundreds MHz of 5 GHz band back to wifi. Hopefully that's what will happen here. The NTSB only reco…
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Re: NTSB Calls for Alcohol Detection Systems in All New Vehicles
#10They're also recommending speed limiters that essentially force you to follow the limits. I wonder if we'd see speed limits increase if everyone followed them as-posted? Because right now there seems to be this assumption from both sides that everyone is speeding, so they post 70 because they want 80, or 25 because they want 30, etc. While DUI is a legitimate problem, it isn't clear to me though what exactly the NTSB…
> I wonder if we'd see speed limits increase if everyone followed them as-posted?
Yeah, "speed limits" are primarily a political game, not anything based in reality. Roads designed for 55 get labeled 45 (in 1990) then 40 (2000) then 35 (2010) and then "road dieted" to 25 (2020). Everyone's "speeding" on paper, but not in reality -- they're going the speed they're were always supposed to go. But politically, people just decided slower=nicer for their particular stretch of street (they already live there, so 'walkability' is just fine for them, strip out all the lanes, throw garbage into the street, whatever) without really caring about how badly it would impact public transportation for everyone in general. It's a textbook "tragedy of the commons" problem.
If you enforce this by vehicle, everyone's going to flip out (because the fake-posted-speed-limit is way below what any sensible person is actually safely driving) and you'll see a significant number of people instantly jailbreak their cars to fix it.