From my previous comment, it looks like NHTSA is moving faster than I predicted. We’re now at step 1, with this Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
(edit: I jumped the gun, we’re still at step ‘0’ on my original list)
Most of this notice seems to be a report on why ‘impaired driving’ is bad. I see alcohol, cannabis, mobile phone use, drowsiness…etc.
Due to technology immaturity and a lack of testing protocols, drugged driving is not being considered in this advance notice of proposed rulemaking.
Makes sense.
There is no clear and consistent engineering or industry definition of ‘‘impairment.’’
Yep, another unclear request by Congress.
NHTSA believes that Congress did not intend to limit NHTSA’s efforts under BIL to alcohol impairment.
Okay, that’s fair.
Camera-based-systems, however, are increasingly feasible and common in vehicles.
Uh-oh…
The Safety Act also contains a ‘‘make inoperative’’ provision, which prohibits certain entities from knowingly modifying or deactivating any part of a device or element of design installed in or on a motor vehicle in compliance with an applicable FMVSS. Those entities include vehicle manufacturers, distributors, dealers, rental companies, and repair businesses. Notably, the make inoperative prohibition does not apply to individual vehicle owners. While NHTSA encourages individual vehicle owners not to degrade the safety of their vehicles or equipment by removing, modifying, or deactivating a safety system, the Safety Act does not prohibit them from doing so. This creates a potential source of issues for solutions that lack consumer acceptance, since individual owners would not be prohibited by Federal law from removing or modifying those systems (i.e., using defeat mechanisms).
Note that “make inoperative” does not apply to a “kill switch” in this case. NHTSA uses the term to mean “disabling required safety devices”. For example, as an individual vehicle owner, it’s perfectly legal for you to remove the seatbelts from your car, despite Federal requirements. But it’s illegal for the entities listed above to do it. (This example doesn’t extend to state regulations. It’s legal for you to remove your seatbelts, but may still be illegal to drive a car without them.)
There’s a short ‘discussion’ here regarding how to passively detect impaired driving, noting the difficulties of creating such a system. Followed by a note that basically says if they can’t do it within 10 years, NHTSA can give up and not do it, as stated in the Infrastructure law.
There’s a long section on how to detect various types of impairment, current methods of preventing impaired driving, etc. An interesting section about detecting blood-alcohol level using infrared sensors embedded in the steering wheel. Body posture sensors can be used to detect driver distraction.
This is followed by a brief overview of the technologies NHTSA is considering:
Camera-Based Driver Monitoring Sensors
Hands-On-Wheel Sensors
Lane Departure and Steering Sensors
Speed/Braking Sensors
Time-Based Sensors
Physiological Sensors
On page 850 (21 of the PDF), NHTSA asks for feedback to several questions. There are a few pages of relevant issues, so I won’t cover them here. If you wish, you can go here to leave a comment. Please don’t leave irrelevant garbage like “I oppose this on the grounds of my Constitutional rights…” While applicable in this situation, it’s irrelevant to NHTSA, and commenting like that will just waste everybody’s time. There’s a section on page 855 (26 of the PDF) about Privacy and Security.
That’s that. Let me know I can answer any of your questions. I’ll try to come back to this post throughout the day and see what’s happening. But, I do not work for NHTSA, so can’t remark on agency thought process.
You know what would eliminate a ton of drunk driving?
Functional Public Transit
But that isn’t something we can pass off onto the consumer and break their cars, so we’re not gonna do it.
More parts in my car that can:
- Break and render my car inoperative until fixed
- Harvest my data for sale or AI model training
- Take photos of me that can oopsie doopsie leak to the internet
- Produce false positives and at least temporarily delay normal operation
- Surveil me
- Be hacked and used for nefarious purposes
Lovely.
I’m pissed enough already that my Subaru takes recordings of me through my OnStar microphone to train AI or sell or whatever. (Subaru’s privacy policy says I agree to allow that basically by existing in a Subaru.) And Subaru is not the worst privacy offender.
I’m all for safer driving, but the car companies have to be creaming themselves over all the data this is would let them harvest in the name of “safety.”
I wish it were as simple as calling things like your onstar microphone a deal-breaker when looking for a new car, but it seems like every single car out there has many deal-breakers, and you just need to choose which are worst.
is there any reason you can’t disconnect the mic? or do you use the onstar feature. I have been thinking of disabling mine as I don’t use it nor plan to in the immediate future due to the subscription costs being extortionary
If it’s anything like my 2001, there will be. (It’s the damn horn. The relay. It’s wired in there with a bunch of other important shit, like cruise control. So, when i use the fob to lock the door, it doesn’t simply chirp, it wholeass honks. Any efforts and documentation to silence this feature have been a failure. So I unplugged one horn and tried again and found out there were two.) I’ve been tempted to run a separate wire from the battery to the horn but I’m still toying with a wiring diagram about it because if I’m gonna rig it, I’d prefer to do it correctly, and only once😂 Good luck with your mic, though.
You know you can disable that with some foil. Wrap the On star module in it and it can’t send any signals.That’s assuming you don’t use the OnStar.
The last GM vehicle I had, it was possible to entirely remove the OnStar module without affecting the operation of the truck. I also knew someone else that found out that if something tears the little shark-fin antenna off the roof, it won’t work either.
I’m not sure about the interoperability between GM cars and OnStar, but almost every other car it can be disabled by removing the three plugs in the OnStar box. Here’s an article on how to do it.
Can’t tell you how often I get a reminder to keep my eyes on the road, just because I repositioned my head, or tilted it down to stretch my neck. My eyes are on the road damn it. Now my car will turn off in the middle of the highway if i get a stiff neck…great.
Also, I had no idea subaru did this. I saw a recent article that mentioned a few big named car brands, and subaru wasnt included, so, i was naively hopefull. Plus, I realize im being recorded anyways, in an infinate amount of ways, but i didnt realize the car was in on it too. Wow, that sucks. I need to pay better attention, no pun intended.
Yeah the amount of shit I’ve seen about lack of privacy in new cars is disgusting. If I were you I’d get into the onstar panel and just pull some wires.
One of the things that was posited was that cars would look at the way you were driving, and if you were driving “erratically” it would shut off.
So what happens when you’re trying to get someone to a hospital because they’ve been seriously injured and are bleeding to death in your car? No, it doesn’t happen very often. But I can think of at least one case: Kentucky Ballistics, who had a rifle explode and blew shrapnel into his jugular. You will absolutely be driving erratically in those circumstances; exceeding the speed limit, weaving, honking, turning without signaling…
This is a band-aid solution to a problem caused by a larger issue.
Since in the US driving is an implied requirement for transportation, the barrier to entry for driving a car is absurdly low.
This is a bad solution to a bad problem caused by decades of bad decisions.
Me dodging around all the three foot wide potholes my city refuses to fucking fix would be tagged as “erratic driving”, despite never fully leaving my travel lane, and would get my car disabled
Fuck that lmfao
MAny many years ago I raced to the hospital doing all those things. I wouldn’t rely on today’s self-driving car to do it unless I was alone and had no choice.
On the other hand I can think of many more cases when someone was killed by erratic driver. It kind of sounds like you’re ignoring something occurring every day and focusing on fantasy scenario. It’s obvious that eliminating even 1% of accidents caused by erratic drivers would save more lives than people racing to hospitals do.
I’m not saying that shutting off cars based on some AI analyzing your driving patterns is a good idea but you really need to think about another argument than “this one guy would probably die this one time”.
Also, that’s what ambulances are for. Fixing the ambulance service would be a better idea than hoping people will manage to race to hospitals without killing anyone.
Also, that’s what ambulances are for.
Many people have died waiting for ambulances that didn’t come, or took too long. Houses in my area have burned down because the fire department couldn’t figure out where an address was because GPS gives them the wrong location.
If I slip while working with a chainsaw and cut my femoral artery, I’m not going to tell my wife to wait for an ambulance; I’m going to get a tourniquet on and have her drive me as fast as she can to the hospital, because that will save me 20 minutes–minimum, and that’s if they’re not already out on a call on the other side of the county–over waiting for an ambulance.
Your link to leave a comment appears broken.
I admire the desire to reduce impaired driving, but not only are there so many edge cases where detection will create false positives or negatives, I frankly do not trust any modern auto manufacturers to implement it cleanly.
Modern cars are already an absolute travesty when it comes to consumer rights, privacy, and data safety. The only logical outcome I can possibly see for such systems is manufacturers using that data against your will for additional profit. That data WILL be abused in any way possible, it’s the universal law of business.And more risky than that, these complex electronic systems will fail. And they will fail frequently, and often, because manufacturers will cut as many corners out of them as they can until they are the bare minimum to be legally compliant without any care to longevity.
So what happens when your $1800 steering wheel alcohol sensor fucks off 500 miles out of warranty, and constantly says you have a BAC of 0.20 leaving you stranded 80 miles from home? Will they log that you tried to drive drunk, then sell that data to your insurance and mortgage companies who instantly raise your rates by double because you’re “high risk”, despite having never done anything wrong with no recourse whatsoever? You bet your fucking ass they will!Maybe I’m cynical and just acting like an angry boomer, but I consider myself a responsible citizen and will NEVER buy a vehicle that implements any of these technologies, because not only do I not need them, but I guarantee you the implementations will be absolute hot garbage.
I mean, I’d never buy a modern car anyway because their current electronics and auto transmissions are also hot garbage… but that’s a separate problemWeird. Here it is. Maybe…
That link works, thanks.
That’s a very well put together overview. Thanks for taking care of this!
Thanks for looking through all of this. If I’m understanding right, it seems like Congress is asking NHTSA to do a task that is probably not possible, but they are required to at least go through the motions to try?
It seems like they just told nhtsa to use technology to fix drunk driving so they can wash their hands of the situation and claim they tried to do something, but nhtsa couldn’t figure it out. Why didn’t they tell the NIH to eliminate the cancer while they were at it.
I do believe the technology to detect BAC is too erroneous to inflict on innocent drivers, and technology that could detect impairment through driving characteristics, while possible for individual drivers could never work on a population level. There’s going to be a lot of overlap between impaired drivers and just naturally bad drivers.
Exactly. There’s too much possibility of false positives in most of these technologies to be safe. There’s a section where NHTSA covers how they should handle disabling a vehicle in a dangerous situation. For example, if I’m in the middle of the woods camping and drinking, should I be able to drive my car to escape a forest fire?
For example, if I’m in the middle of the woods camping and drinking, should I be able to drive my car to escape a forest fire?
The problem, of course, being that if an emergency override of any kind exists for such situations- then that override can always be used, making the restrictions null and void. which means all systems were simply added cost and maintenance headaches passed onto the consumer for zero net benefit.
Sure maybe they could make an always online system like onStar that would let you request an override to be reviewed by a person… but that’s fucking hilarious to think any manufacturer is going to take on that cost, they’d make it a mandatory subscription for some stupid AI override bot, and that is an even bigger pile of fucking nope.
I think this whole kill switch thing is a terrible idea, but if it must happen somehow then an override that logs when it is used might be a bare minimum.
Still think it’s awful, just the least awful.
Right, so then who monitors the logs? Are there punishments for excessively bypassing safety features? Because the goal of these features is to stop a crash from happening. If you can bypass them at all, a log entry isn’t going to help the crash victims. Which means the system must inherently be extremely totalitarian and strict if it is to succeed in its stated goal, which is not something you will get most drivers to sign on to.
To be clear I am agreeing that the entire kill switch idea is poorly conceived and absolute garbage (nothing new from congress there). I’m just enumerating the problems with allowing any sort of reasonable exceptions to an inherently unreasonable idea.
Presumably it’d be monitored by law enforcement. I’m describing this as a system that would allow the totalitarian “you don’t actually own your own things any more” thing that the proponents of this law are champing eagerly at the bit to implement while avoiding the “you need to escape a wildfire immediately but the car thinks you’re a little too eager on the gas pedal” scenario. Not as a system that I would in any way like or support.
Elsewhere in the thread someone mentioned that the proposed rules wouldn’t prevent individuals from disabling this kill switch entirely, much like it’s technically legal for an individual to remove the seatbelts or airbags or whatever from their own car. I would grudgingly accept a law like that as the absolute worst thing that I would actually be willing to accept, provided the kill switch actually was disableable and not locked behind stuff that would blow up the car if you took it out.
At least this part is good:
“While NHTSA encourages individual vehicle owners not to degrade the safety of their vehicles or equipment by removing, modifying, or deactivating a safety system, the Safety Act does not prohibit them from doing so. This creates a potential source of issues for solutions that lack consumer acceptance, since individual owners would not be prohibited by Federal law from removing or modifying those systems (i.e., using defeat mechanisms).”
Personal owners are allowed to do whatever the hell they want to their vehicles regarding Federal safety standards. Weld the doors shut, go ahead. Remove all the airbags, not a problem.
(b) PROHIBITION.—A manufacturer, distributor, dealer, rental company, or motor vehicle repair business may not knowingly make inoperative any part of a device or element of design installed on or in a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment in compliance with an applicable motor vehicle safety standard prescribed under this chapter unless the manufacturer, distributor, dealer, rental company, or repair business reasonably believes the vehicle or equipment will not be used (except for testing or a similar purpose during maintenance or repair) when the device or element is inoperative.
Remove seatbelts? Just curious how it is in the US
There are about…50?..Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). The way the law is written, personal owners are allowed to disable any safety features mandated by these standards. But it’s illegal for one of those listed entities (manufacturers, dealers, rental places, and repair businesses) to do it. So, while you personally are allowed disable those items, you can’t bring your car to a repair business and have them do it for you.
But, there are also State Regulations to consider. The Federal government doesn’t force anybody to wear a seatbelt, they just require the car to have them when you buy it. The individual states regulate seatbelt use. While the Federal Regulations say you’re legally allowed to remove the seatbelts, most of (if not all) the State Regulations say you have to wear a seatbelt while driving.
That being said, there’s a mechanism for those listed entities to get an exemption, allowing them to disable safety features. Consider someone in a wheelchair. They have to get a car modified if they want to drive, and they’ll be unable to do it themselves. So they bring the car to someone that can handle the modifications (say they need to disable the airbag), and that business will send a request to NHTSA, and NHTSA will give them an exemption for one modified car to remove or disable the airbag.
Everyone I know uses seatbelts. I’ve seen defeat devices that plug into the seatbelt receptacle but I don’t know anyone who uses one. Every vehicle I’ve been in has seatbelts except school buses and some charter buses.
lol, schoolbuses are exempt from requiring seatbelts. But I think charter buses are either required to have them, or in the process of requiring them.
Thanks for summarizing this up for us. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
America will do anything to not implement public transit and less car dependency.
Just listened to a podcast with a portion about how neighborhood convenience stores are all tied to gas stations, and how single-use zoning laws have forced everybody to travel for groceries.
How else will I be able to roll coal in my pavement princess because I have
a small dickhuge throbbing masculinity?
