https://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/15/put-a-kill-switch-on-govt-bureaucrats-not-our-cars/
Remember that “kill switch” mandate for new cars that media fact-checkers years ago assured the public was just a crazy right-wing conspiracy? Well, the federal government recently took the first step toward a rule that would …. require all new cars sold to come with a kill switch.
A provision in the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2021 directed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to come up with a rule by this year requiring new cars to have “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology.”
The law describes this tech as being able to “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle” and “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected.”
Critics immediately raised privacy, cost, and reliability concerns any such “monitoring” system would raise, only to be reassured by the mainstream press that this was much ado about nothing. The provision was meant only to keep drunk drivers off the road.
The fact checkers also said that law enforcement and government agencies wouldn’t be notified of an impaired driver or ever be able to remotely disable your car.
Phew.
But the law doesn’t specifically forbid such systems from communicating with third parties or allowing them to shut down cars remotely. And you can bet that cops, government agencies, insurance companies, and who knows who else will all want access to it.