January 3, 2007

AND THEY'LL BE MANDATORY:

Toyota Developing Drunken Driving System (AP, 1/02/06)

Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) is developing a fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption, a news report said Wednesday.

Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver's bloodstream, according to a report carried by the mass-circulation daily, Asahi Shimbun.

The system could also kick in if the sensors detect abnormal steering, or if a special camera shows that the driver's pupils are not in focus. The car is then slowed to a halt, the report said.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 3, 2007 12:00 AM
Comments

Slows down to a halt. That'll be safe. Sensors sense something??? -- car halts while doing 80 on the interstate. Yikes.

Just recently while driving fast in the left lane, the car in front of me stops dead. Luckily there was nobody on my right, so I was able to go around him, but it could have been a disaster if, as is usually the case, there were cars to the left of us, cars to the right of us . . .

Please save us from those who are so concerned with our safety. All the new security updates to my internet access are driving me crazy and getting in the way of the fun I'd like to have surfing the net.

Is anyone else unable to view comments here? I'm beginning to think it's my excessively paranoid system. I upgraded to IE 7 and then went back to IE 6 because I thought it made things worse. I know I should go to Foxfire or Mazilla, but I've become too timid to make the leap.

Should I prepare to switch to Apple?

Posted by: erp at January 3, 2007 8:44 AM

Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver's bloodstream... or if a special camera shows that the driver's pupils are not in focus.

Good news for driving glove and driving glasses manufacturers, then.

Posted by: John Thacker at January 3, 2007 8:58 AM

you overestimate drunks

Posted by: oj at January 3, 2007 10:18 AM

I think it's rather difficult to overestimate the ingenuity of drunks when it comes to ways to ensure that the alcoholic can continue to drink.

Posted by: John Thacker at January 3, 2007 12:57 PM

It's not--it is easy to overestimate how much those around them care about stopping them.

Posted by: oj at January 3, 2007 1:44 PM

1) This idea is as fluky as that "fence" nonsense. Such a system would be easy to defeat, expensive and dangerous. It bears a close resemblance to various gun-grabbing ideas.

Does anybody remember "ballistic fingerprinting?"
All phoney B.S.--never went anywhere. The couple of jurisdictions that tried it have dropped it as a waste. How about the "smart gun," you know, a gun which suposedly could not be fired by anyone but a certain person who held it in a certain way. More phoney B.S. which never went anywhere.

That is just what we are seeing here. Like the fence, or the gun schemes, it wouldn't work, but it shows that the proponent really, really, really cares.

Erp: Ditto. IE7--comments FUBARed.

Posted by: Lou Gots at January 3, 2007 7:31 PM

No, it won't. Guns will eventually have passive i.d. systems too.

Posted by: oj at January 3, 2007 8:42 PM
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