Mandatory In-Car Breathalyzers Coming?
By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist
If you’re not a convicted drunk driver, should you still be required to have an in-car breathalyzer fitted (at your expense, ‘natch) to your next new vehicle?
Apparently, some automakers — including GM and Toyota — think so. They and a few others are working together under the auspices of something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, which is a $10 million federal “research program” that is trying to develop just such technology for mass introduction a few years from now.
At the moment, the only people who have to deal with (and pay for) in-car Breathalyzers are convicted drunks; the devices are basically ignition locks that prevent the vehicle’s engine from being started until the would-be driver blows into the tube and the system determines he’s not liquored up.
But by 2012 or so, in-car breath sniffers could be standard equipment in every new vehicle sold, force-fed to you by the tag team of Washington, Detroit and, of course, the ever-busy Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).
No conviction necessary.
Advocates say the technology under development would be “less intrusive.” Instead of making the driver blow into a little tube like they make you do at those roadside “sobriety checkpoints,” a system of passive alcohol sensors would be fitted to the car that could take a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) reading via a person’s skin — as when your hand touches the shifter or steering wheel. This “quiet” approach is supposed to make us feel better about being pre-convicted and treated like known and duly processed irresponsible drunks every single time we get behind the wheel of a car.
It doesn’t work for me.
I dislike drunk drivers as much as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (is anyone actually for drunk driving)? But I certainly do object to policies and regulations that impose cost and hassle and arguably, petit tyranny, on people who have done absolutely nothing to warrant it.
This isn’t about nannyism so much as it is about upending a few basic bedrock Western ideas about criminal justice, rights and responsibilities. Chief among these being that each of us gets treated as a specific individual.
If we do something wrong, we get specifically held accountable for it; the guy next door who had nothing to do with it isn’t dragged along for the ride. But that’s just what is happening here — indeed, has already happened — from those so-called “sobriety checkpoints” (which mostly “check” perfectly sober drivers) to the growing kudzu of “primary enforcement” seat belts laws that pester (and ticket) people for not wearing a seat belt, an action that may not be especially smart on an individual level but which has very little to do with the safety or well-being of others.
What’s even worse than these growing harassments, however, is how few object to them on principle.
Perhaps it’s because of the continuous dumbing-down of the populace, which knows all about Lindsay Lohan’s latest bender and who’s the latest finalist on American Idol but no longer understands that the ends don’t justify the means — and that down that road lies much worse than henpecky tickets and having to pay a few more bucks for your next new car as a result of some government mandate.
People used to get that; today, most don’t seem to. It’s the only way to explain the tsunami-like effectiveness of the word, “safety” — which doesn’t have to be specifically defined, quantified, subjected to cost-benefit analysis or throttled back by the once-superior claim of the individual’s “personal bubble of authority” — where he or she formerly reigned supreme, free of the suffocating and endless edicts of others who claim their evaluation of a perceived risk trumps your personal right to choose.
Just say “safety” (and for added emphasis, include “our children”) and no objection can be sustained.
This latest bit of ugliness burbling up from the stinkpot of government-corporate do-gooderism is merely a symptom of the underlying canker that is our ignorance — and acquiescence.
Earlier generations of Americans would have said, “Hold on a minute. I haven’t been convicted of driving drunk; hell, I’ve never even been suspected of it. Why in the world should I be required to buy an alcohol sniffer to check me out before I drive?” They would have insisted on tough punishment for the specific dimwit who got behind the wheel of a car impaired by booze. But they would have insisted, with equal toughness, that everyone else be left the hell alone to go about their business in peace.
Today, however, the siren song of saaaaaaaaafety is like a secular version of the prayer call in Muslim countries. When people hear it, they automatically fall down on their knees en masse and begin to worship.
God may be great — but “safety” is rapidly gaining ground on him.
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I wonder, how many women will be raped and murdered by random stalkers because they couldn’t start their automobiles fast enough to escape? Let’s hope they are all members of MADD.
Just once, I’d like to see somebody who knows a bit more than zero about the Constitution state for the record that the federal fascist government has ZERO AUTHORITY to legislate with respect to what people put into their bodies. Laws are supposed to deal with peoples’ actions, NOT the content of their body fluids.
The Nazis were the first people in history to implement drunk driving laws. I’m sure it was just a coincidence that Hitler was a non-smoking, teetotaling vegetarian fanatic. And by the way, the Nazis pointed to forced sterilization laws in the U.S. as models for their laws legalizing the sterilization of Jews. In case you’re wondering, by the time Uncle Adolf and the Nazis came to power, there were 17 states in this “free” country that had passed such laws, Indiana being the first in 1907.
And for anybody who wants to whine to me that a relative was killed by a drunk driver, there are laws that were in place decades before this insidious shit to take care of this. Leave the alcohol out of it. And don’t give me any shit that somebody who MAY be LEGALLY drunk (and like George Carlin said, if they’re LEGALLY drunk, then what’s the fucking problem?) should have their life ruined because they MIGHT do something. Probabilities aren’t for legislators writing laws to deal with. They’re for insurance companies and casinos to deal with, on a private basis.
Question: what kind of a police state is this, when the government has to administer a test to you to determine whether you’re a “criminal?”
Last question: how does anybody know whether these “breathalyzers” even read accurately? You breathe into it, a cop says you’re a criminal, and off you go, and your life is ruined? The Founders shouldn’t have bothered.
I wrote a blog yesterday saying almost the EXACT same thing before I had read this just now. I would invite everyone to read it and if you’re a myspace member you can comment on it.
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=51612463&blogID=408568232
http://www.myspace.com/chadpolenz
I am confused why you would be so upset about something like this? Don’t you think it is a little late to be screeching about violations of your liberty when you traded it all for bowl of cold, weak soup long ago?
When you all consented to mandatory insurance as a condition of exercise of your essential liberty, you psssssed it all away.
Insurance is exactly that – a system of ‘guilty EVEN IF proven innocent’, the MOST innocent (those who NEVER do any harm) pay the most, the MOST guilty (careless, irresponsible) escape any real consequences for their actions. And the innocent – well, they go to jail and have theri lives destroyed for not participating in this gross injustice.
The liberty-eating monster you all trust in is about to taserr you all to death in front of your kids, and up your rates…
[...] Eric Peters National Motorists Association June 23, 2008 [...]
Your founding fathers must be spinning in their graves. Why do you americans-who claim to be free and brave and a democracy-allow this to go on? You are so submissive.
Welcome to the ussa. I wonder if these “advocates” pushing this totalitarian, orwellian “technology” would have the same devices installed on their cars?
Why I bet not!
Guilty til proven innocent. That’s what the law is all about.
Why do they think that these interlocks will have any greater acceptance by the public than the seat belt interlock regulation of 1974? Even a small percentage of false alarms where a car doesn’t start inappropriately will cause a consumer uproar.
You know what is involved in more accidents than alcohol?
Drowsiness.
I guess that means I will either walk everywhere or use public transport.
Oh wait – I do that already.
Will these devices be in the taxis, the buses, the trains and the planes?
I like the idea. There are 10-20 times more people driving drunk than the ones getting caught, plus 90% of the people killed are by drunks that have never gotten a DUII ticket. Saving 100,000 + people from serious injuries and society’s costs makes this very sensible. It is only a safety device, like seat belts, air bags, and KEYS!
[...] Until Proved Innocent Mandatory In-Car Breathalyzers Coming? Well I told a few people that this was coming, of course I was laughed at, after all it does sound [...]
Not that I would ever buy a new car again (who can afford the 50% depreciation when you drive it off the lot?), but this certainly infringes on the very meaning of the words ‘innocent until proven guilty’.
Just more idiot legislation from our band of idiot lawmakers with too much time on their hands, too much lobby money in their pockets and too much whispering in their ear by the department of homeland ‘security’.
This idea is communism marketed as public safety. Anyone who falls for it deserves to live in North Korea or Red China, not the United States.
Yet no one is concerned that unlicensed drivers get behind the wheel all the time, or that the driver of a vehicle isn’t always the vehicle’s owner, or even an authorized driver of the vehicle. And what about cellphone users? Supposedly they’re just as bad as drunks. Where’s the cellphone detection devices? So, target the drunks, but let the thieves, unlicensed drivers and cellphone users ride free? Believe me, I’m not a supporter of any kind of nannying devices, but seriously, if you’re going to target problem drivers, why target just one kind?
Just from the practicality standpoint, how much more insane can you get than to introduce a point of failure into your design that intentionally makes the product useless if it malfunctions?
Excuse me, did they say passive sampling of the skin when you touch things? I wonder what would happen, then, to all the paranoid moms who constantly rub alcohol-based hand sanitizer all over themselves? Will the same soccer moms supporting MADD now be thwarted in their own efforts to drive by their own mad schemes?
hey mike, most ‘underage drivers’, and i assume you mean under the legal age to drink alcohol which is 21, are legal adults (18,19,20). So it should be, in your mind, absurd that they should ever have this enforced on them.
[...] Will we soon have ignition interlock devices on every vehicle? [...]
Can you please provide specific names so we can write letters to oppose this.
Eg which senator sponsored the 10M funding.
thank
Give me liberty or give me death. Our founding fathers would be planning another revolution. The weed police just grabbed me this week because I cultivate a black berry patch to pick for fruit and also make a little wine.
Statements like those of Mike Greenberg are indicative of the indoctrination that our schools have instilled in our youth. Thomas Payne and John Henry are only names in history books and our Constitution is a terribly old guidepost that should be modernized to keep up with the times.
The TSA, road blocks, tracking of our financial transactions, CCTV cameras, and many other techniques are being “sold” to us in the name of “safety” while our youth just blindly accept it.
What will it take for the populous or just a significant number of citizens wake up and realize what is happening to our freedoms? They way that we are controlled in American society would make Stalin proud.
Mike Greenberg:
Did you read the column? The whole point is that groups should NOT be pre-judged and lumped together. That measures like this are wrong in and of themselves, not wrong for only a group of people.
If you want to argue that teens binge drink, that’s a different issue (albeit with an equally stupid cause). But it’s still not a reason to presuppose that they have been drinking when they get into a car.
This kind of ‘solution’ to a ‘problem’ that’s primarily driven by Mothers Against Drinking is inherently wrong, and that they use the amorphous spectre of ‘Safety’ to shout down any opposition is the issue.
I actually think this would be a good idea to impose on underage drivers (I’m 19) because the propensity for teens to drink massive quantities… I know tons of kids who are extremely level headed but drink so much that their functioning on autopilot.
For adults, this idea is absurd though. Only if you’re a serial drunk driver should this be considered.