The problem with a vehicle kill switch is the same problem as an encryption backdoor for law enforcement. It will leak, quickly (inside a year) and so not only will law enforcement misuse this power (history shows they’ve misused all powers they’ve been given) but nefarious interests will use it to cause havoc.
one problem…
From what I read, the mandated system cannot be activated remotely. The bill describes a local subsystem that somehow determines if the driver is incompetent and disabled the car. The only real danger here, imo, is the extreme vagueness of the “somehow” (not to discredit the seriousness of this danger).
Slippery slope. What if an update is pushed to the car that can determine if the driver is incompetent?
They probably will, and your incompetence would be one of the least personal pieces of information modern vehicles collect about you. Actually, I would guess that all car manufacturers already have this data; the car just doesn’t act on it.
Always check your sources…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Economic_Education
They literally gave an award to Charles Koch.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
They can be a source of egregious right wing propaganda undermining our democracy at every turn (which they are), and also occasionally still have legitimate grievances with our legislators sneaking bullshit like this into otherwise critical legislation.
They cited their sources and included direct quotations from the bill. Are you saying any of their claims about what the bill says are untrue? It’s good to have a healthy amount of skepticism, especially for groups with known biases, but what’s your point in calling this out here?
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.
Just the framing of the first line is like something out of an Ayn Rand hallucination. When I see something that heavily tilted the first thing I look for is WHO is writing it and WHY would they.
I mean, even if I think libertarians are overall not very smart, I do think their stance on vice laws is the right one.
The part that got me is when they quoted the text of the bill and then linked to the bill.
But yes, the constant “slamming” of democrats is pretty biased. I can’t say I wholly disagree with that first paragraph, but anything that uses “land of the free” unironically usually has an angle.
Especially anyone who believes that individuals are less free now than they were historically in the United States. Only the ignorant or biased make that claim.
Ayn Rand Institute is way nuttier.
Yes one of their quotes is the opinion section of the bill at the beginning that has no effect on the law.
And “kill switch” is trying to get you to think that the police get a button to turn off the car, which is the one thing it doesn’t do. It wants the thing most current luxury cars have where the car detects the driver falling asleep, but tune it to also detect drunk driving.
That’s also bad if you just want a manual car that isn’t full of DRM, but FEE is trying to tell idiots that BRANDON is giving the BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT a SWITCH to KILL YOUR FAMILY just like in your favorite CAMERON DIAZ movie THE BOX (2009).
They cited their sources and included direct quotations from the bill.
And the direct quotations from the bill were less-than-damning without several paragraphs of editorial leading the reader down the garden path. This is on the same level as the ‘death panel’ hysteria from about 10 years ago.
At some point in the future cars will have to incl. some form of assistance technology as a standard feature, big whoop. It doesn’t say it has to be enabled by default, or always turned on, and with all the assists and autonomous driving features already being added to cars, it’s very likely most manufacturers will end up meeting the requirements of the bill without even trying.
…
If
driver behaving erratic and interfering with safe function of car
Then
pull safely to the side of the road and temporarily disable ignition
…
BuT mUh FrEeDoMs. Something something ‘right to travel’ = right to operate a car whilst intoxicated (sounds like some SovCit bullshit), as opposed to right to a functional public transport system or something…
I’m just waiting for the moment that this kill switch is hacked, and whole cities come to a complete standstill.
Please stop…I can only get so erect
So this isn’t an external kill switch. It’s far more likely to be a lane and driver monitoring system integral to the car itself.
The big problem is what do you do with a car that’s stopped itself? Obviously you need emergency services, and obviously you can’t depend on the passengers to call them. So the real effect here is to mandate the integration of vehicles into the emergency service networks so the car can call up dispatch.
I would say this is another brick in the argument for an open source car operating system that keeps the car offline and gives you the tools you want.
I would say this is another brick in the argument for an open source car operating system
…Go analog with a carb, maybe? Only thing that can stop a carb from working is it being out of gas. Or changing altitude. Or bad fuel. Or it’s too cold and/or hot. … OK lots of things can stop carbs, but the government sure can’t, at least.
clogged jets… lol
Sticky float, bad gasket, clogged line, etc, etc.
That’s what the Seagram is for, probably.
OK lots of things can stop carbs, but the government sure can’t, at least.
Nixon thought he could, hence the war on drugs.
Jailbreaking cars will be the new software development in piracy. Just wait for someone to figure out a way to permanently disable this entire system.
I would jailbreak my vehicle’s head unit SOFAST!!!
Do you think that last sentence will ever happen though? I’d be stoked if it did, but the cynical side of me says we’re already doomed…
Not outside of a niche group with the skills to do it themselves.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I think too. Maybe someone will figure out how to jailbreak, like another commenter suggested.
American solution to a problem of deadly car chases.
I guess „don’t chase cars” would be too simple.
So any crime committed while in a car is free-game? No need for license plates, just buy a generic looking car and never stop.
You just said license plates dude.
All around the world when the police sees you speeding in a school zone and you don’t stop they won’t go and speed in a school zone as well. But we also don’t sell guns in supermarkets and later have a problem with gun violence.
What I said was why would someone that plans to commit a crime have a license plate? Since they just have to not stop and the police can’t do anything if they can’t chase.
Chasing sucks, I 100% agree it’s a terrible solution. But what other solution is there that can be implemented? Please come up with one so that we can actually do away with chasing. Somebody work on this problem.
You’re saying, cops shouldn’t chase cars. What would happen next if they can’t chase cars? They already have all kinds of rules for breaking it off for safety. And they keep making more. If there was a better solution, they would be all for it. In alot of cases, backing off can decrease safety for a bit too, so they have to be careful when they stop chasing too. The lights and sirens help keep people safer around the speeding car.
It’s not an easy problem, there is no easy solution. It’ll keep evolving as small solutions for parts of what sucks about it are thought of.
You say ‘what would happen if they didn’t chase cars?’ as if it’s hypothetical, but many places already do this.
So, what happens? They will turn on lights and sirens speed up a bit and make it clear the car should pull over. If it doesn’t, they continue to follow it with lights and sirens. If the bad guy starts driving in a manner dangerous to the public specifically in an attempt to flee, they back off. And then radio the vehicle description to a unit further ahead. Sometimes the unit ahead is unmarked, finds it, and is able to follow at safe speed. Later try to arrest occupants when they get out or can be pinned with confidence. There are also other tools available like traffic cameras and aircraft.
Yes, this sometimes causes people to get away. But it also sometimes saves lives of random bystanders…so some places decide it as a worthwhile trade off. And no these countries aren’t wastelands with Mad Max roads of death.
You are right about some situations being more dangerous not to pursue. Which is why if someone is intentionally running over people, or shooting at everyone, or some other very intense situation… the police don’t back off. But for a speeding ticket, for sure backing off.
But the US has all that too, and uses all that. The chases really only happen with non-descript stolen vehicles. Or when the occupants of the vehicle would be in more danger if the pursuit was called off than if it continued. And there is a constant analysis as to when the threat to the public outweighs the threat to the occupant.
It’s not like the police are idiots or don’t have access to the same or better intelligence tools. They have to call in high-speed pursuits and there is constant oversight.
I think pursuits are overall much safer than it makes it seem when you see them on TV or YouTube, because the boring ones don’t make it there, but the vast, vast majority are indeed boring.
Result of communism.
I’m sure we’ll never find out that the kill switch was disproportionately used on people of color.
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There’s no possible way this ever makes it to regulation. And most of you haven’t read the law, so don’t understand you’re being lied to. Read analysis here:
Looking at the other articles on the site, I count one antivaxx and another that claims the newly elected fascist in Argentina is a “Libertarian”.
Thanks for linking to a sane review.
I think the analysis is correct in that the implementation will die in committee before ever making it to effect, not to mention the practical considerations of implementing this in the lighting-fast timeframe of 3 years. However, I cannot help but point out this part:
So far, not a kill switch, but some kind of technology to detect if you’re driving like a drunk person and disable the vehicle.
“Disable the vehicle” is literally what people mean when they talk about a “kill switch”. At best that’s an argument over semantics. The law mandates a thing that deliberately stop your car from functioning. That’s a kill switch.
It’s not a lie. There’s no malicious intent. It’s just not even wrong. It so fundamentally lacks understanding of the underlying bureaucracy, technology, product lifecycle, and surrounding politics politics that it amounts to nothing.
And the overall point still stands. We should be skeptical of these kinds of intrusions into our devices from the state. We should resist them as a default posture.
Next step will be to have it drive you to the police station and alert them of your arrival.
I remember when a remote kill switch was the unlikely yet dystopian “next step”
First part to get ripped out of new cars
Don’t have time right now the deep dive into that absolute wall of text. Did get a few paragraphs in to find that your champion is Thomas Massie ® (Nut Job), that’s clarity enough for now…
I don’t see any problem with a system to detect drunk driving and bring the car to a stop. There is no right to drive a car while drunk or otherwise impaired. Inventing one by calling upon privacy also ignores that the cops can pull you over and give you a sobriety test if they have reason to anyway. In 2021, over 13,000 people in the US died from drunk drivers. They deserve protection.
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You’re right about the undue search and seizure. For me, it isn’t the politicians I fear in this hypothetical scenario. I fear the corporations and police that would be the case-by-case adjudicators.
You need to think about unintended consequences.
Like the used car market going ape shit and poor people having no chance of picking one up? We’ve done that before recently.
Driver entitlement episode 456: “what do you mean my death machine needs to have a remote kill switch???”
Insane.
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“Disadvantages”
43 000 deaths a year and you cry at the slightest inconvenience
Drivers need a reality check
Car accidents cause about double the number of deaths in America as homicide, but no one ever says “you need to chill about violent crime.” Cars cause another 1.5 million injuries on top of that. Cars contribute around 30% of the CO2 pollution in America, but only the truly insane would say people need to “chill” about global warming.
Our entire public infrastructure was gutted, such that we went from a pioneer in public transportation to basically only being able to use cars because oil companies and car manufacturers wanted it that way. We have the least efficient, most expensive, most polluting, most stressful form of travel but it’s totally okay you guys because some people really like having a big truck that they can put truck nuts on and drive to the office in and it would be an infringement on their rights if we used taxes to build a fucking monorail or something.
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This is the best take I’ve ever heard. “Reality sounds too much like hyperbole, so no one believes it.”
Oh, stop being sensationalist. A car is a car, that’s all it ever will be. It’s clear you didn’t even read the article because its not talking about remote kill switches.
Cars kill 43 000 people a year in the U.S.
I’m talking about people’s reactions in this thread when they haven’t read the article. All of those people opposing a hypothetical “cop presses a button” remote kill switch are insane.
Private citizens do not have a right to operating a motor vehicle any way they see fit. You license it, you license your skills, you get it looked at periodically and you use it on public roads with the state’s blessing only if you can manage to get along with other people using that same road. There is no sense opposing a kill switch for “freedom”.
We can’t trust cops with their stupid car chases that result in crashes, and their maneuvers for flipping cars over on the freeway.
You give them a killswitch
I absolutely oppose universal kill switches and I’m not insane. Something about that pesky “innocent 'till proven guilty” thing. If you lose that privilege, you get a breathalyzer lock. That’s fair. But I haven’t used “smart” tech in a car that hasn’t bugged out in unpredictable ways and this won’t be an exception. Technology that overrides driver input is a risk to those the vehicle belongs and that’s unacceptable to me.
“Innocent until proven guilty” has nothing to do with it. When a cop stops you he’s not indicting you. Switching your gas off remotely replaces chasing calling in reinforcements and chasing you over several blocks when you start speeding up, or flipping your car over. Both of those already impair or override the driver’s input quite a bit.
Having the opinion that your driver input should override the cop’s order to stop, and that society should trust you to stop instead of putting a kill switch in your engine is an insane opinion, and prime driver entitlement.
And I would love the same for drivers without insurance, license removals and cars that didn’t pass the tech inspection
