"Current technology requires a driver to blow heavily into a breathalyzer device before starting the car and regularly while driving."

I invoke the law of unintended consequences: "Distracted drivers were involved in nearly eight out of 10 collisions or near-crashes, says a study released Thursday by the government."

Have more to say but I'm busy starting a petition to have sensors installed on bathroom doors so they won't open unless the person has washed his hands before leaving. The technology exists, people, so let's use it!

They would have to get the breathalyzer/iginition equipment pretty much up to fail-safe mode, or there would be lots of angry, sober people out there helplessly blowing into tubes while their car sits there dead in the parking lot.

Actually, this would be a really good way to teach people to become home mechanics, since lots of people would demand to know how to disable such technology.

I remember, back in the 70's, there was an idea to have your car not start if your seat belt wasn't buckled. It failed, for much the same reason as this idea will fail - there's plenty of good reasons to run you car without your seatbelt on and without having to blow in a stupid tube. For example, can you imagine trying to diagnose a problem under the hood if you have to keep running back and puffing in the breathalizer? b is right - people will make a point of disabling the tattletale.

The gun-control mentality spreading to other venues. For a while the gun-grabbers were advocating devices (which, BTW, did not exist) to render a pistol; inoperable unless gripped by a particular person in a particular way.

The scheme went nowhere, the identical destination as that of the foregoing.

b:

That's what was always claimed for belts and airbags--it's whining, not reality.

Rick:

Note that the toilet flushes automatically.

Guilty until proven innocent is a perfectly acceptible gov't mandate for social engineering types when it furthers their goals. Our host has no problem with gov't enforced social engineering when it it confirms his petty prejudices.

(As for those auto-flush toilets, there was a recent rant on how they are a miserable failure because they don't take into account people's needs, but the needs of the engineers who designed them.)

oj: Totally irrelevant analogies. As Bryan notes, it would never work to force people to buckle up before starting their car. It doesn't make any sense if you know anything about how people use cars. All you can do is put in an idiot light on the dashboard (and anyone who doesn't buckle their seatbelt truly is an idiot).

Raoul:

Yet they flush.

b:

You could easily make the seatbelt warning light shut off the engine instead, but as you say there are times the car needs to be running without the driver seated. It never needs to be running while a drunk is holding the wheel.

Is someone on this thread suggesting that, since toilets flush automatically, they don't have to wash their hands?

Why? Because they didn't touch a toilet?

Surreal.

jj:

Precisely. You know where your johnson has been--it's the toilet that's a disease vector.

OJ:
Sure would like to hear your lovely wife's opinion on that.

Bryan;

Simple rule: wash your hands before you go to the bathroom, not after.

Unless one can still grab the Gold in the fireman's contest, i.e., can urinate from a distance of 4+ feet from the urinal, do not discount microscopic-splatter getting all over one's hands, etc., during both urination and flushing. Our hands are the disease vector in addition to the urinal. Turn faucet on with first paper towel to wash hands. Dry hands with second paper towel and use same to turn off faucet. Dispose of these two and open bathroom door with third paper towel, depositing it in waste basket that should be next to exit. Do a Larry Bird into any waste basket that isn't. That's how to protect yourself and the public from the disease vectors.

Good men can disagree, but if we've established anything valuable today it's that use of "Johnson" is cool on BrothersJudd Blog. I was going to resort to "the old chap," but thank God a tried-and-true Americanism prevailed.

Private School grad (sniffing at his friend who fails to wash): "In my school, they taught us to wash our hands after we had a piss."

Public School grad: "Yeah, well in my school they taught us not to piss all over our hands."

Wrap yourself in plastic wrap and never leave the house, or let anyone else in, and that too will spare you and the public from disease vectors. At some point "diminishing returns" sets in, and the amount of effort and its negative benefits far outweighs the risks.

The same holds true for nannystatisms like car interlock systems for persons who've not been convicted of a crime or even subjected to due process.

there are no diminishining returns on things like automatic toilets and passive safety devices that save tens of thousands of lives. They cost little but yield huge returns.

I am all for the automatic breathalyzer in all cars.

Did I mention I'm opening a canned-air and battery-operated-fan shop next to a college campus?

They aren't breathalyzers.

So, the auto mechanic will be blowing into the same breathalyzer tube everytime I take the car in to be serviced? Talk about disease vectors.

No tube.

The breathalyzer requirement is a non-starter as a general prescription. It's a bit too intrusive to qualify as a "passive safety device." My latest car came (used) with an alarm system, which we didn't want, pre-installed. It was a royal pain in most respects and eventually managed to strand first my wife and then me on separate errands (wouldn't disarm with the remote, so we couldn't start the car). That's a technology that's been around for decades; I can't imagine that a breathalyzer linked to an ignition interlock would be any better.

Of course, anticipated malfunctions would be just as likely in the opposite direction, leading to an immediate legal recourse for any drunks who did manage to make it onto the road: "But my breathalyzer let me start the car!" It's not like you could blame them...

It might work as a required addition to the cars of anyone cited for drunk driving, perhaps extended to moving violations and/or public drunkenness. The "scarlet letter" effect would also be notable for anyone forced to drive a car equipped with one of them.

I'm surprised you all don't see this is just step one in Orrin's long term anti-car campaign. If you give in on this one, the next thing you know you'll be driving a car that shuts down the second it crosses the state line.

M:

It's not at all intrusive. Unless you consider holding the wheel an imposition.

By your rationale, similar interlocks should be in place on all firearms. And a great deal of moral panic would be resolved if we could just engineer them into everyone's underwear.

Is this also part of the OJ prophylactic program?

M:

Yes, firearms will eventually carry interlocks, most likely fingerprint ID first.

Quite a while back my parents had a car that talked. It was very disconcerting and it didn't catch on.

Well, I am glad that we finally got back to the delusion that firearms may be controlled with some kind of "interlock," for this betrays the statist mindset of restricting freedom in the name of safety.

The gun things simlply do not work, as is shown by the fact that all proposals concerniong them begin by exempting the jack-booted thugs from their strictures. They fail. They preclude sharing a weapon in an emergency. They disarm one who must grasp the gun in any way but that for which the device was designed, for example if one is engaging a target from a barrier which precludes the use of the strrong hand. Picture a right-handed shooter firing around the left edge of a wall. Finally, they may be hacked and jammed.

That anyone dreams of such nonsence is evidence of the envy of the weak, railing at the thought that any might be strong.

Only the enforcement agents of the state may have the means of force, the weak whimper. Most fortunately, we know better in this country.

There are times when the police are not there for you. They may have walked off the job, as in New Orleans, or they may have been intsructed by their masters that you are not worth protecting, as in some urban disorders. Then you will know what the RKBA is all about.

I must assert that the car plan is an anti-private transportation ploy, just as the gun scheme is any anti-RKBA ploy.

Lou:

yet.

I don't know, Lou. Are you sure you want to analogize the right of the citizen to defend himself to his right to start his car when looped?

This would be a lawyer's dream for years and I'm sceptical it would work as neatly as Orrin may hope, but it's not a matter of first principle. Driving is not a constitutional right.

Many misconceptions occur when people discuss ignition interlock devices (IID's). I would just like to clear up some that I have read in the previous comments hoping to disprove some of the myths often associated with IID's.

IID's require no buttons being pushed to complete a test and can alert the driver to test via sound to prevent looking away from the road. These devices also give ample time, six minutes; to complete such tests so pulling over is always an option or waiting till you are out of traffic.

IID's do not have the capability of shutting your vehicle off. Although the device does require rolling tests, if this test is skipped or failed it is counted as a violation but will not shut down the engine.

IID's that are equipped with a fuel cell sensor, when calibrated properly, are incredibly accurate and reliable. Many of the myths came from sensor cell style units which are very few and far between. Technology in these units has come leaps and bounds in the previous years.

Almost all IID's are equipped with some form of an anti-circumvention feature. While some devices have significantly better features than others, when used they make it near impossible to provide a non-human sample to the device.

IID's contain a brain unit that keeps records and make it impossible for anyone, even a trained technician to by-pass the unit without the event being recorded.

I am not writing to argue for the installation of IID's in every vehicle. I am just trying to clear up some of the myths that are unjustly associated with a great product. Who knows maybe an IID has saved your life or someone you love.