When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
You either care about your personal freedoms or you don't...you can't have freedom without risk, and the threat of risk is often the justification used to convince us to give up our freedom.
We also should have freedoms that allow us to drive down the road without being hit by someone else who has over-imbibed.
We also should have freedoms that allow us to drive down the road without being hit by someone else who has over-imbibed.
Thats not worth having to prove that we are not drinking and driving every time we start our cars. They need to enforce the law and keep drunk drivers off the road.
What you say would be correct IF driving was a Constitutional right. But, the legal fact (always has been) is that, in all 50 states and D.C., driving on public roads is not a right, but a privilege. As drivers, we all have to put up with some things that we don't like...that just goes with the license. It was the same way when I got my Airman's (Pilot) License years ago.
I don't believe there's ever been an infringement upon personal liberty or privacy that mmarshall doesn't enthusiastically support "for safety".
Wrong. Actually, I never liked the electronic Lane-Keeping features. I've found that, on some vehicles, they are either overly-sensitive to the slightest drift to or away from a lane-marking, and drive you nuts with constant beeps, or, on some other vehicles (including mine) they aren't sensitive enough, and let you drift all over the place or stop working at certain speeds and conditions. I generally keep mine turned off.
What you say would be correct IF driving was a Constitutional right. But, the legal fact (always has been) is that, in all 50 states and D.C., driving on public roads is not a right, but a privilege. As drivers, we all have to put up with some things that we don't like...that just goes with the license. It was the same way when I got my Airman's (Pilot) License years ago.
Let me ask you this: ......do you think we should have systems like we do, where one's foot has to be on the brake pedal (or the clutch-pedal in a stick-shift car) to start the engine, the transmission lever has to be in Park before the engine will start or shut off, and one's foot has to be on the brake pedal before you can shift out of Park? Personally, I don't see much difference between those and having a clear breath before the ignition will work.
No I think those systems are only to cover for morons. So let them deal with the consequences
That's not how that works. Stay home if you are that scared
First, I am not scared......I've probably driven a million or more miles in my lifetime.....thousands alone just doing auto-reviews over the years. Second, that's EXACTLY how it works...one cannot put a price on human life. Third, these systems are put into vehicles for a reason....most of the time, in most places, they save those lives.....although some of the self-driving systems still have serious problems.
Frankly, I think we are simply arguing over a moot point. No matter what our own personal view of the system (a few of us on Car Chat seem to be in favor of it...the majority not), it is a done deal, unless overturned by the next Administration. That's why I started the thread. And many, if not most, of today's vehicles already have it.
Second, that's EXACTLY how it works...one cannot put a price on human life.
This is an incredibly naïve view. Of course you can, and it's done hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of times per day. The existence of society and progress depends on our ability to put a price on human life. If we could not, then every thing that is made would cost infinite money. This is why engineering degrees also have embedded ethics courses, because those tradeoffs are a part of their day to day work. Usually a standard is created and followed. To use the prior example of airplanes, that standard is 150% of expected load. A plane's structure must be able to handle 50% more stress than the plane is expected to experience during normal operations. That's considered a reasonable incremental expense for the lives saved in incidents where a plane experiences forces slightly beyond its operating envelope. But if it experiences 75% more stress, the airframe will fail and people will die. We've decided that the expense to save those marginal lives is not worth it.
Bringing it back to the thread topic, that is also the case here. The technology behind this was actually invented in the 1950s. But it was shelved because we put a price on human life then too, and decided it wasn't worth it at the time:
Early warning systems were attempted as early as the late 1950s. An example is Cadillac, which developed a prototype vehicle named the Cadillac Cyclone which used the new radar technology to detect objects in front of the car with the radar sensors mounted inside "nose cones". It was deemed too costly to manufacture.
The modern version of what we now know as AEB was patented in 1990, and first available in 1995. It took 30 years from that point for the mandate to come. Why? Because the small number of lives that would be saved were not worth the staggering economic costs. Not then, not 20 years ago, and not 10 years ago. But technology marches ever onward--efficacy improves and costs decline. Fast forward to today, when this technology is finally fairly effective, and already standard equipment on >70% of vehicles. The incremental cost to bring that to 100% is now deemed worthwhile. It took 70 years from that Cadillac prototype to cross the threshold where the human costs outweigh the economic costs. So as a society we now collectively agree to bear the economic costs in order to save those lives.
04-30-24, 08:33 PM
