And when all the used cars are gone and I'm forced to buy one of these I'll promptly be destroying the radio transmitters and everything related to this surveillance.
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Why are govts like this suddenly? All in a arms race against privacy?
Because late stage capitalism, lobbyists pushed legislators to allow data collection so that it can be sold to insurance companies who also lobbied so that they can charge more for premiums.
Every company makes more profit.
We don't live in a democracy anymore.
Guillotine insurance companies. They're just scummy middle-men that seek profit at the cost of everyone else
Not suddenly. It's been going on at least as far back as 2001. Probably more. It's generally not the gov't either as the gov't is mostly driven by moneyed private interests like large corporations. They always push in different ways to get more power to make profit. Get rid of a regulation, make new regulation, get a subsidy, limit rights to resist some abuse, etc. Sometimes it's just more obvious that others in general, or it's in an are we personally pay attention to, and we're like WTAF.
The commodification of life itself.
Once you understand that we are just livestock to those in charge, a lot of their behavior starts to make more sense.
They're scared of the likes of Luigi and paper Mario. More and more people are getting fed up
Its been like this my entire life. When I was in high school in the 90s one of my teachers said the greatest battle your generation will fight will be for privacy. Little did they know there would be no fight. The general public doesn't seem interested in caring about things and voting with their wallet. Now we've reached this point where the game is up and companies have realized the masses will buy their products because people perceive that they "need" them and can't do without which gives them free reign to do whatever they want.
voting with their wallet I'm onboard with your argument but I really don't think voting with your wallet works in cases like this. When there are so few players in a system and they're all colluding to make things worse, there is no vote.
I am deeply frustrated that people aren't getting more involved. I link them to groups, I show them the consumer rights wiki, I talk to people about getting involved politically at the local level... So few people care. Things are going to have to get much worse before they take action, best thing we can do is have the framework in place for when they finally wake up.
There are valid concerns about crazy surveillance bills, but this specific one is overreaction.
Basically the 2021 infrastructure bill asks NHTSA to come with a standard to detect impaired driving (it doesn't say how it should be implemented, the camera watching us is author's imagination how it would be implemented) and if there is no technology available then they should publish a yearly report describing current state of things.
Because of the yearly report requirement I've been reading similar article saying that this will happen in 2026. That's how I learned about first.
You can find the reports here: https://www.nhtsa.gov/reports-to-congress
I think those overreacting articles are doing disservice because they distract us from actually dangerous things like for example bills like the one trying to incorporate age verification into OS requiring for example Microsoft verifying our identity before we can use their OS.
Not many people realized that bill like this already sneaked and was signed into law in California for example. It mandates this starting 2027.
Well in part it’s just being perceived that way. The car will decide if you’re drunk somehow becomes government surveillance. The App Store will ask for proof of age: government surveillance. And so on.
I’m not saying that this is a false interpretation but certainly it’s leaned on extremely hard in the way people report on and talk about these things. Hence why you get the sense that everyone everywhere is suddenly completely about government surveillance.
I think we could have a whole conversation about drunk driving and the efficacy and fairness of this kind of measure without even cracking the lid on government surveillance. But no one wants that. Nope, if it isn’t a direct descent straight into Fascism, it doesn’t get clicked on.
It's almost like dozens of major companies are going on a blitz of heavy public surveillance projects that are very publicly selling that data directly to the government... So when yet another of those companies already doing those things Congress up with a new surveillance method, people can do the math
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
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.
With no return of your privileges once convicted.
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.
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 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.
They will really do anything before investing in public transit
Automobile-centric infrastructure was such a colossal societal fuck-up.
Bad for personal health, physical safety, household finances, and the environment. Automobiles are not a symbol of freedom, they are a symbol of dependence.
While I agree about automobile centric structure, when rural living automobiles are absolutely the ticket to freedom. It's a shame more populace areas get designed around maintaining dependence on cars.
I think the point is choice. Even those living in suburban and urban areas have a difficult time opting out of car-dependence.
If you choose to live rural, I would say that automobiles are part and parcel to that decision. It's just the nature of low population density.
Except for the thousands of years that humanity was able to exist in low population density towns and villages completely fine without the need for personal vehicles.
That statement just isn't true in the slightest. It's only part of rural living because that's how it has been designed in roughly the last century of human society.
There is no materially restrictive reason it has to be this way. It is entirely a problem that is artificially created.
Except for the thousands of years that humanity was able to exist in low population density towns and villages completely fine without the need for personal vehicles.
Should we go back to the horse and buggy?
Love the quote, not the context. It’s a legitimate question. We got ride of horses in rural areas due to cars. In North America and Canada in particular the distances are so vast that rural public transportation is not really feasible
Entirely false claim.
People used horse and buggy to transport goods between towns. Inside of towns themselves, people just fucking walked places mate because we didn't needlessly build them so far apart in order to accommodate vehicular traffic.
We absolutely have the resources required to overcomes these distances and enact functional public transit with a restructuring of our towns and cities.
I'm over this conversation if you're just going to keep repeating that bs.
People used horse and buggy to transport goods between towns.
This is what I'm talking about. How do we do this without cars? I was discussing this with someone else in this thread so I'll just quote what I said there:
To put things in perspective, Denmark is 42,947km2, and Canada is 9,984,670 km2. That means that you could fit almost 232 and a half Denmarks in Canada. Despite this about half of the population of Canada in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, which is only 1,150 km-long, and about 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. That means that the vast majority of Canada is totally rural, and there are often vast distances between towns and First Nations. It is simply not economically feasible to build rail lines to connect all these places, let along sending out regular train services to these places.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for car free infrastructure within towns, but I just don't see how we can transport goods between rural towns without cars. Willing to have my mind changed tho
Transporting goods via car does not require structuring our entire society around them being the primary method of transportation. You can still transport goods via vehicle while having accessible public transit and cities/towns structured around pedestrians. Rural included.
It's only a ticket to freedom because rural living is structured like ass. It's a bandaid on a bigger, festering issue of poor city planning.
This is true in many cases, but for very rural living (eg people living on farms) there's not much you can do about car-centric design
Except this is entirely false of a claim. Human society worked for thousands of years before the car. European countries prove it is possible as well with their rural public transit services. It is absolutely not a necessity. There is no reason to design our cities and towns around personal vehicles being the primary method of transportation.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that car centric urban design is a bad thing. Truly, I do. But in very rural places in North America, you either need a car or a horse and buggy, or something, and the car seems like an obvious upgrade. Just because they can do public transit in rural areas in Europe does not mean we can do it here. Because the size comparisons aren't even close. European countries with good rural transportation are dealing with significantly less landmass than North American rural communities are.
To put things in perspective, Denmark is 42,947km^2^, and Canada is 9,984,670 km^2^. That means that you could fit almost 232 and a half Denmarks in Canada. Despite this about half of the population of Canada in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, which is only 1,150 km-long, and about 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border. That means that the vast majority of Canada is totally rural, and there are often vast distances between towns and First Nations. It is simply not economically feasible to build rail lines to connect all these places, let along sending out regular train services to these places.
To really hammer the point home, consider Nunavut, a territory in Canada. It is 2,093,190 km^2^. For perspective, Ukraine (the second-largest country in Europe after Russia) is 603,549km^2^. That means you could almost put three and a half Ukraine's in Nunavut (and again, Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe!). And Nunavut is extremely rural, with a population of 36,858 (and Ukraine has 32283000 people, meaning that Nunavut has 875.87 times fewer people than Ukraine). The largest population centre in Nunavut is Iqaluit, which has only 7,429 people.
So putting aside, for a second, the extreme logistical challenges with creating railways in Nunavut (due to terrain, ice, etc), how can we possibly build public transit to connect the entire territory? When we are dealing with places this vast, and this rural, we simply not economically feasible to build rural public transit. Even reality wealthy countries like Canada cannot afford to fund megaprojects like that. And again, this is just Nunavut, 1 of 13 provinces / territories. When you look at the entirety of Canada, it is simply not realistic to have rural public transit servicing the entire country. I'm sure it's possible in small countries like Denmark, but not here.
But that doesn't change the fact that, within cities at least, we should of course do our best to get rid of car centric design.
Only because we have made society this way. There is ZERO material necessities that stipulate that it must be this way. None, absolutely nadda.
Other countries have done it. The size argument is bullshit, China is able to do it and has equivalent landmass. No excuses. The entire point of trains was to traverse these vast expanses. Trains are what drove the Westward expansion of American society. So arguing that trains can't handle those distances is absurd.
Also, public transit is more than just trains, it's also walkability and bus services. Cars can exist in society without them being the primary method of transportation.
"Economically feasible" is a bullshit excuse because we create the economy. If the economy can't meet the needs of people then the economy is what needs to change, not force people to go without BASIC SERVICES. Money is not a materially limiting factor.
Humanity existed without cars (or a horse and buggy since someone made that flippant response) for hundreds of years and we absolutely can restructure our societies to go back to being pedestrian centric in both urban AND rural locations. It is entirely possible and there is no legitimate excuse not to. Economically feasible as stated is not a legitimate excuse.
Other countries have done it. The size argument is bullshit, China is able to do it and has equivalent landmass. No excuses. The entire point of trains was to traverse these vast expanses. Trains are what drove the Westward expansion of American society. So arguing that trains can’t handle those distances is absurd.
China has good rail service, but China still uses cars / transport trucks to get to many rural places. Source: I've been to rural China. I'm not against trains I just don't think we can make it the primary means of transportation between rural towns
More efficient, sure, but their argument was about freedom, which is just a different dimension. In an extreme example, private jets provide more freedom than public transportation does, even though it's obvious which one is worse for the environment, more expensive, more intrusive, etc.
Your point is good up until you start naively slandering Anarchism out of nowhere. Way to absolutely undermine yourself there.

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