As reported on Monday, the "infrastructure" bill being introduced by Senate Dems and championed by President Joe Biden has a bunch of fun stuff in it that is most definitely not infrastructure.
One of the provisions in the bill, however, would affect every single new car you buy for the rest of your life by requiring alcohol monitors to be installed in all vehicles.
Buried in the massive proposal—which is already longer than 2,700 pages—is a section titled, "ADVANCED IMPAIRED DRIVING TECHNOLOGY," which mandates new vehicles include "a system that … passively and accurately detect[s] whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than the blood alcohol concentration" of .08, in which case the system would "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation." Automobile manufacturers would have a three-year grace period to comply with the regulation.
Yay! The government is going to protect us all from drunk drivers by installing tech that won't let us drive without a blood alcohol test!
I am 100% sure that people who want to drive drunk won't find easy ways to circumvent the biometric measures and that this tech won't crash on me and leave my car dead while I'm trying to take my kids to school.
"It certainly looks like this opens the door for mandatory breathalyzers in every new car. It's crazy," said one senior Republican aide, who requested anonymity to speak candidly due to ongoing negotiations in the Senate.
You shouldn't need anonymity to say that. We are dealing with the heights of lunacy here.
Although the exact type of alcohol monitor the bill would require is unclear, passive alcohol sensors are described in a report by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). The group recommends "driver monitoring systems, touch-based systems that can read your blood alcohol concentration through your fingertips and air-sampling systems that can test and isolate just the air exhaled by the driver." MADD president Alex Otte praised Senate negotiators for using the infrastructure bill as a vehicle to pass the group's "most significant" legislative push in recent years.
I'm totally against impaired driving, but imposing government-mandated blood-and-breath monitors to leave your home in the modern world is a mind-boggling invasion of personal agency and liberty.
When you trade freedom for "safety," my friends, you end up with neither. Hasn't the past 18 months proved that yet?
"We cannot wait any longer to establish a standard for impaired driving prevention technology that can be deployed on all new vehicles," Otte said in a statement. "This legislation will mark the beginning of the end of drunk driving."
No, this won't be the end of drunk driving. It really won't. This will do nothing except give government authorities greater power over the free travel of individuals.
It will also raise the price of vehicles, create expensive systems that are prone to failure, and force a good portion of the population such as myself to never buy a new car (which I'm sure the auto industry wouldn't like).
Intoxalock, a company that manufactures vehicle breathalyzers, has also spent heavily on lobbying in the past five years. It has spent more than $900,000 on lobbyists since 2017, according to the Center For Responsive Politics, including $40,000 to Crossroads Strategies in 2021.
See? It's all about your safety, citizen. Don't look at the companies that are shilling out a ton of money to use government to destroy your liberties so they can turn a profit!
According to the bill, new technology would "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit is detected." One senior Senate staffer familiar with the bipartisan infrastructure agreement negotiations said most lawmakers were likely unfamiliar with the provision, noting that most senators hadn't even read the bill.
Gotta love it. The people who want to get around this system will get around it.
The other 99% will just be ticked off when we're trying to get to work and our state-mandated breathalyzer isn't working.
