Over the last century, the Land of the Free has slowly transformed into a land governed by endless laws, largely by cracking down on vices instead of actual crimes, creating a society that would render us all criminals if our behavior were constantly observed. Meanwhile, the state has steadily expanded its use of mass surveillance, largely under the pretext of fighting “terror.”
This is a toxic mixture.
This isn’t even political and quite likely the first article posted in this community with which I agree.
I’m against this because it’s a terrible idea in terms of privacy and security.
It requires the kill switch to be triggered by software and I’ve worked in software… there will absolutely be bugs, hacks and/or abuse, possibly all of the above.
And no, that’s not to say I’m against all software, but something that restricts or cuts power to your car seems like a terrible fucking idea.
I might be driving too erratically for whatever baseline they code, for an actual good reason… maybe I’m in a shitty backwoods road with holes bigger than the car.
Maybe the sensor is just defective.
People also drive non off-road vehicules… in off-road conditions.
I’ve rescued a wounded man with an internally bleeding leg, crushed by machinery, way out in the sticks, at the far edge of a field and several shittier backroads.
The ride back to civilization was an absolute shitshow and we barely made it back in time to save his life and his leg already. Interfering from some shit algorithm made with a perfect road in mind would have killed him. Which reminds me I should call them and visit them for a hug.
I don’t ever want this shit in my car and I’ve never driven drunk or impaired, can’t even remember my last speeding ticket from decades ago.
Obscure, proprietary, closed source software blobs isn’t a solution.
The question of whether government should be able to disable your vehicle is indeed a political one.
It’s not the government shutting down your vehicle. It’s a regulatory requirement for car manufacturers to include a new safety device that the government is creating a standard for.
And disabling is not a requirement of this regulation. It says the device should disable OR limit operation of the vehicle when impairment is detected.
None of that hair splitting changes the basic fact that this is a question of the government taking away people’s car. The fact that it might only slow you down, the fact they’re ordering others to carry it out instead of doing it themselves, it’s all the same thing.
Do you feel the same way about seatbelt laws?
Do you feel like it’s a bad thing when the government takes the license (and therefore car) of a drunk driver?
Bad roads is my first thought too. The roads in my state are horrible. I tried one of the progressive “snapshot” devices when I was younger, and that thing acted like I was in an accident a few times juat because of potholes and bad pavement joints. So many states would have disabled cars on the road if they are too sensitive with their little kill switch.
A decently designed device would be able to account for bad roads by comparing vibration in the X and Y axis versus the yaw and roll of the vehicle. Progressive’s device isn’t that.
If the system they end up designing is capable of accurately telling the difference, then it seems to me to be a good safety feature. Otherwise, sure, it is a terrible idea.
The question being presented isn’t “Is it possible to design a solution?” The question is “Will the corporate stooges involved bother to implement that solution?” As shown by the Progressive doodad, they probably won’t.
Corporations won’t. But the proposed system is being designed by the government.
The same government that said “Big vehicles can pollute more” which caused our SUV and big truck epidemic? That government? You’ll have to forgive me for thinking they will just have the auto industry design it for them, like they have with laws surrounding fuel mileage and pollution standards.
Would you be saying this in response to regulation requiring seatbelts?
Does a seat belt allow someone to remotely disable the car? Try a different strawman.
This policy doesn’t remotely shut down cars either.
How so is it not political? The government forcing your car to shut down seems like the definition of political.
And given that you don’t support the government doing this, is that not also political?
Yea I meant something else at the time, but fumbled it.
Probably meant something like it shouldn’t be partisan.
That checks out. Calling it not political seemed really unusual, but it seems there’s people who just spam “this isn’t political” under every post, so I wasn’t really sure.
No I probably just had a brain fart when I wrote that because it makes no sense to call in non political.
As have I, and specifically train software. It’s a bitch to work with but not impossible to create a safe product.
The language of the bill states that “identifies whether they may be impaired and prevents or limits motor vehicle operation”, so a full power cut isn’t a requirement. Like I said in my other comment, a speed limit might be the end result of this (at least to me it makes the most sense).
So there is a difference between a shitty bumpy road an erratic driving. Even the most grotesquely maintained path will have the majority of the jostling kept to the vertical and roll axis. The constant vertical change and rotational change would make it pretty clear it’s just a terrible road, so a system only really looking at the yaw axis wouldn’t care. And with some other sensors to provide context, such as one to measure the length the vehicle’s shocks are at, could rule out bad roads.
I have a device in my car from my car insurance company to monitor my driving. I don’t go on shitty roads much, but when it detects me making too sharp of a turn, or too sudden braking/acceleration, usually it’s justified. If I make them a whole lot in a short period of time, then it would be justified for the car to self-speed limit.
This is probably the worst case scenario, but not entirely the end of the world if the system has a backup, and an error code for one of the sensors going out.
I agree with you on this. It should be open source and well documented.
Lmao, checks out that you’re just welcoming in the surveillance stare with open arms
My car company is not a part of the state, and I am cheap ass. I am a good driver and I want my insurance rates to reflect that.
I get good insurance rates, and I told them to stuff it when they “offered” to spy on me wherever i go.
And lmao that you actually think “good driving” and “driving favored by insurance actuaries” are even remotely the same.
I never said they are the same. But there is enough overlap to get me a decent discount.
Unless you just had your rates in the absolute shitter beforehand, you have very low standards for what a decent discount is, especially when you consider that you’re normalizing them taking an overwhelming amount of data about you to create future insurance profiles for everyone.
Oh no!
If you’ve ever driven out in a field or in the boonsticks, that’s just not always the case.
In some places, you simply have to swerve to avoid the worst of it because otherwise your tires and/or direction just won’t survive. Like, you’re not bouncing up and down through potholes, you’re dodging ditches, roots, pits, divots, rocks.
Sure you could drive 10kph, but sometimes it’s not that good of an idea, like say, in an emergency with your passenger bleeding out.
Is it somewhat of an exception? Sure, but something that you can’t disable and takes some measure of control away from you isn’t something I’m excited about.
In theory, that could be nice in some cases, but that seems dangerous.
If you’re having to avoid that, it sounds like you were either already going slow, or were going straight over those obstacles. In either case a good system would be able to tell you’re going a low speed and it’s safe, or it’s just a bumpy road.
What about a comprimise of vehicles containing such a device being subsidized? You have the choice, and a safer car is made to be the better more competitive choice. But for those who really worry about an edge case they still have an option.
No to both.
You seem stuck on the vertically of this scenario, and a trained software would likely make the same assumptions, yet they’d be wrong in some cases.
I did specifically mention swerving and not merely bumpy, from an actual real life scenario that I remember quite vividly.
I wasn’t driving over any of these obstacles, because the car would have simply been destroyed, we’d have crashed and both died.
I wasn’t driving that slow either, because my passenger was bleeding the fuck out.
The doc said it was a matter of minutes.
Software works fine for things where the driver’s intent can be determined more clearly, like traction assist. I got no issue with that.
In this limit/kill-switch, driver intent cannot always be determined reliably because some factors depend on things there cannot be a sensor for.
I fail to see what problem this solution is supposed to address other than giving more power and data to companies and governments. Odds of this being a transparent, properly audited, open source solution are nil.
If it merely flagged you for review or something, maybe?
I’d have no issue with such a system if it merely tried to wake the driver up when it thinks you’ve fallen asleep.
If it takes control away from you, possibly in some fringe case emergency that’s not accounted for in whatever software, it can fuck off.
Drunk drivers would either not opt-in, or bypass them illegally… like they already drive drunk, without licenses or plates illegally.
In Canada, we already have alcotest machines mandated in cars for people that have DUI infractions, maybe this technology could complement that.
For the general populace, it’s not something I’d be excited about.
Fair enough.
Drunk driving
I don’t disagree with you there, but just because it might end up being closed source and such doesn’t mean it will be connected to the internet and giving your info to companies/the government. The bill specifies that it should be a passive system.
I wouldn’t have a problem with either of those two options.
I don’t think it is that clear cut. Drunk driving isn’t exactly a premeditated crime. It’s one that generally happens on a whim. Sure, some people know they have a habit of doing it and would find a way to opt out, but it would still help address other drunk drivers.
I would be open to that as well.
If we are really being honest, the easiest solution is to stop having car dependent cities and transportation networks. Nobody is gonna drive drunk when the train/subway/bus/sidewalk can get you home safely, quickly, cheaply, and easily.
Take a look at Japan’s drunk driving fatalities. They have almost none. Part of that is their ‘draconian’ laws/low legal alcohol limits, and also probably culture. But they have fantastic public transportation, and it’s a great option for drunks to get home.