Sometimes, technology worsens on purpose.
Buried deep within the massive infrastructure legislation recently signed by President Joe Biden is a little-noticed “safety” measure that will take effect in five years. Marketed to Congress as a benign tool to help prevent drunk driving, the measure will mandate that automobile manufacturers build into every car what amounts to a “vehicle kill switch.”As has become standard for legislative mandates passed by Congress, this measure is disturbingly short on details. What we do know is that the “safety” device must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”...
First, use of the word “passively” suggests the system will always be on and constantly monitoring the vehicle. Secondly, the system must connect to the vehicle’s operational controls, so as to disable the vehicle either before driving or during, when impairment is detected. Thirdly, it will be an “open” system, or at least one with a backdoor, meaning authorized (or unauthorized) third-parties can remotely access the system’s data at any time.
I definitely do not want one of these. I don't really want a car that thinks for itself at all. Anti-lock brakes are great and all, but almost everything that can be computerized on a car does not need to be and -- in my opinion -- ought not to be. Cars can still do everything a car needs to do without a computer hooked to it.
An example of an older, superior technology.
12 comments:
I am not a fan of the Internet of Things. It's really the Internet of Things That Can Be Hacked. I see no need for vehicles or the vast majority of appliances to ever be internet or wirelessly enabled.
Hear, hear.
In the old days, such a device could be easily defeated. In the modern world, it will probably call the feds if tampered with. either that, or get instructed to steer the car off a cliff or maybe autonomously drive itself to the nearest cop shop where it will wait with horn blaring and doors locked-from the inside.
old cars in good condition from the '90's and early 2000's are going to be sought after- that was about the time the EFI and antilock systems got good, the cars were reliable without all the doo-dads.
I've been considering disabling the car alarm on my Jeep. It's located against the firewall, just to make it hard to disable, but it's a pain because both of my key fobs no longer shut it off -- too old -- so it goes off every time I open the door with the key. I may just pull the fuses to the horns (there are two, apparently).
Everything breaks. Power doors on the minivan were nice until something decayed in the wiring harness and they started draining the battery every night--so I pulled the fuses. We made sure the next minivan did NOT have power doors.
I work with computers every day. This does not fill me with joyful trust in them.
In fact, I went down and pulled those fuses just now.
The Jag was pretty low tech, too, and most importantly, driven by a low tech rube, complete with snowflake helmet. The car's cockpit seemed soundly enough constructed, though.
benign tool to help prevent drunk driving...“vehicle kill switch.”
I had a Datsun 2000 for a while shortly after cars started coming out with emission control claptrap that absorbed engine power in the process of "cleaning" emissions. I knew a guy who knew a guy and got the emission control claptrap removed. The Datsun's performance improved considerably. Modern tech, similarly built in for our own good, is more computerized than mechanical, but there'll always be guys who know guys who can disable such crap.
Eric Hines
GM's On Star had the capability of shutting off the engine and locking the doors.
I had to ride as a passenger with a coworker who had a breathalyzer machine hooked up to his car. It was part of his probation from a DUI. (Unbeknownst to me.)
It was a PITA. If I had known beforehand about it, I wouldn't have accepted the ride. About every 15 minutes or so, he had to pull over and blow in the machine. He had maybe a five minute grace period, in case he was on the interstate, after which his vehicle would shut down.
It also cost him a few hundred to have it installed plus a couple hundred a month to "rent" the technology.
Grim- battery issue with the fobs, or just plain broken? Batteries are easily enough replaced.
I replaced the batteries, of course. They’re just old. It’s a 2007 model.
Heh nice.
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