Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kill Switch for Your Car

Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by kstenerud on Friday December 03, 2021 @05:19AM (#29428448)

Someone is chasing you in another (older) car? Sorry, citizen, you are driving too erratically. Killswitch. Call the cops if you need help. The nearest one is 10 minutes away.

Your wife is bleeding out and every second counts? Sorry, citizen, you are driving too erratically. Killswitch. Call an ambulance if you need help. The nearest one will take 15 minutes to arrive and another 10 to get to the hospital.

Pissed off a bear? Sorry, citizen, you are driving too erratically. Killswitch. Call the forestry service if you need help. The nearest ranger is an hour away.

Your town is flooding and you need to get out by any means possible? Sorry, citizen, you are driving too erratically. Killswitch. Call FEMA if you need help. They'll be here in a few days.

Caught in a blizzard with the wrong tires and are sliding around as you limp your car home so as not to freeze to death? Sorry, citizen, you are driving too erratically. Killswitch. Call roadside service, but don't hold your breath; there's a killer snowstorm out there!

In critical danger but your phone is dead? Sorry, citizen, you are driving too erratically. Killswitch. You should have planned ahead and charged your phone.

Etc, etc...

Oh the horror flicks are gonna have a field day with this trope.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by LeonM on Friday December 03, 2021 @07:18AM (#29429148)

My reaction on the OP was about drinking under the influence of alcohol. Not on how the car may detect false positives on erratic driving.

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Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by kstenerud on Friday December 03, 2021 @07:31AM (#29429271)

But therein lies the problem. Any system that tries to apply a blanket policy WILL run into these very real problems. Regardless of what the actual intent was (blocking drunk drivers in this case), the unintended consequences of this will be severe.

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Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by LeonM on Friday December 03, 2021 @07:43AM (#29429358)

I completely agree with you on this.

But again, my comment wasn't about this system, but drunk driving in general.

I acknowledge that situations exist where drunk driving is the only option (like with the flood/tornado/vulcano examples mentioned in other posts). But for most scenarios there is often a better solution that doesn't involve drunk driving.

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Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by Steltek on Friday December 03, 2021 @08:50AM (#29429970)

My very real problem of being trapped in a car while being attacked a bear?!?!

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Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by infogulch on Friday December 03, 2021 @09:11AM (#29430181)

Picking out one particular extreme case and making fun of it is a pretty good technique in a debate, but it rather misses the point in an authentic conversation. The point is that the sum total of all exceptional use-cases for cars (including, but not limited to running from bears) is actually large enough in practice that this kind of rule may not be worth its opportunity cost.

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Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by Steltek on Friday December 03, 2021 @09:22AM (#29430300)

If we eliminate drunk driving (10k deaths per year, many more injured) in exchange for every single person in those fantastical scenarios dying, lives will be saved by many orders of magnitude. And that's granting that your drunk pregnant wife trapped in a blizzard wildfire with grizzly bears scenario actually happens.

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Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by vanilla_nut on Friday December 03, 2021 @10:11AM (#29430883)

Snowstorms happen across a lot of the USA for a good 3-4 months a year. If stop/start/slow/slide driving in winter conditions kills your car, you could wind up killing way more than 10k people, either through exposure, or because a snowplow or another vehicle didn’t see the killswitched, snow-covered car and rammed right into it.

I like living in snowy places. I could see this being a real problem, just like snowy conditions mean self-driving won’t work for me for many years in my only vehicle.

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Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by scohesc on Friday December 03, 2021 @05:10PM (#29436264)

I tell my car how it drives. Not a computer.

I don't want a computer making the decision as to whether I can drive the car I paid for or not.

Maybe when society finally makes its final swirl down the toilet and we're finally not allowed to use private vehicles on public infrastructure, being forced to use government/corporate sponsored vehicles - maybe then they can tell me how to use _THEIR_ vehicle.

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Re:Buried in Infrastructure Bill Is a Mandatory Backdoor Kil... by GekkePrutser on Friday December 03, 2021 @09:00PM (#29437966)

Well this is where they want it to go in the long run indeed. "You will own nothing and you will be happy". In this case something like Car As A Service.

[ Parent | on HN ]