[HN Gopher] House vote keeps federal "kill switch" vehicle mandate
___________________________________________________________________
House vote keeps federal "kill switch" vehicle mandate
Author : mikece
Score : 78 points
Date : 2026-01-23 18:39 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reclaimthenet.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (reclaimthenet.org)
| unstyledcontent wrote:
| Here in Minneapolis, there have been multiple anecdotal reports
| of ICE being able to remotely unlock cars, disable them, and even
| open windows. Whether its true, its certainly seems possible.
|
| Its made me very concerned about public safety if we allow our
| government to have this power. I actually believe being able to
| own and use a vehicle freely should be protected under the 2nd
| amendment.
|
| Im picturing a world where the US could mass disable vehicles
| based on the owners score in their fancy new palantir database.
| We should have the right to flee danger and use a vehicle for
| that.
|
| I also think the second amendment should be applied encryption
| for the same reason. Encryption is essential to the people's
| ability to mount a defense against tyranny.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Some of this is over-the-top paranoia. If ICE wants to get into
| your car, they'll just break the window.
|
| It's been very long established that nobody has a "right" to
| operate a motor vehicle. It's something you are permitted to do
| under the terms of a license, and it's fairly regulated (though
| not as much as in some other countries).
| colechristensen wrote:
| >It's been very long established that nobody has a "right" to
| operate a motor vehicle. It's something you are permitted to
| do under the terms of a license, and it's fairly regulated
| (though not as much as in some other countries).
|
| Sure you do, in private nobody can be prevented. You need a
| license and insurance to drive on public roads.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| I find this a very odd and non compelling argument
|
| Just now many people have a) private land and b) private
| land in sufficient quantity and state that you can actually
| drive a car on it?
| davorak wrote:
| Farmers who own their farm is the traditional group that
| would qualify. That population is much smaller than it
| used to be to my understanding though.
| iamnothere wrote:
| It's pretty common to have unlicensed off road vehicles,
| especially in the mountain west. Farmers and ranchers
| often have at least one of these. There's plenty of
| recreational users as well.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Compare the numbers of farmers and ranchers to the rest
| of the population.
|
| How many recreational users have private land in
| sufficient quantities?
| iamnothere wrote:
| That doesn't mean that this isn't true in a technical
| sense. It's correct that it isn't feasible for the
| majority of the population.
|
| You'll sometimes also see small communities with private
| roads that allow unlicensed vehicles, such as retirement
| communities, but they often have their own standards for
| what is allowed.
| nkrisc wrote:
| What's your point? It's true.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| basically every farmer.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| I do! I call it my "driveway."
|
| Related: 20 days until the Daytona 500!
| tim-tday wrote:
| Having vehicle override would be an extremely concerning
| capability. (If confirmed)
|
| Your take on "rights" if wrong to the point of insanity. You
| literally don't know what rights are and should stop talking.
| davorak wrote:
| > Some of this is over-the-top paranoia. If ICE wants to get
| into your car, they'll just break the window.
|
| Then when I get to my car I can see the broken window and
| report it or at least know someone broke into my car. With
| remote entry law enforcement or ice can get in and out
| potentially without notice.
|
| Just because police/ice/thieves/etc can break down my door
| and enter my house does not mean I am on board with giving
| any of them a key.
| foogazi wrote:
| > Its made me very concerned about public safety if we allow
| our government to have this power.
|
| ICE says it can legally enter homes without a warrant
|
| So we're beyond concern now
| gruez wrote:
| >ICE says it can legally enter homes without a warrant
|
| Source for this claim, besides the usual exemptions that are
| available to all law enforcement (ie. exigent circumstances)?
| bhickey wrote:
| They wrote a memo saying they could.
| boston_clone wrote:
| not saying you're wrong, but we have to get in the habit
| of sourcing our claims! whistleblowers testified to
| Congress about this memo that began circulating around
| mid-2025.
|
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26499371-dhs-ice-
| mem...
| esalman wrote:
| Some people also need to get in the habit of researching
| a claim by themselves.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Your claim is not a source, so downvoted.
|
| The people who replied to you provided the source:
| upvoted them.
| baby_souffle wrote:
| > Source for this claim, besides the usual exemptions that
| are available to all law enforcement (ie. exigent
| circumstances)?
|
| Context and discussion:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGr-yWEu0hc
|
| The TL/DR: administrative warrant vs an actual "signed off
| by a judge" warrant
| kemayo wrote:
| Here's a representative news article about it (WaPo because
| they were first in the search results):
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/01/22/ice-
| me... (paywall-avoiding: https://archive.is/bsdv9)
|
| They've come up with a memo saying that non-judicial
| warrants can let them break in. This has historically been
| very much _not allowed_.
|
| Edit: As a quick explanation, this is more or less a
| separation-of-powers thing. The rule has been that for the
| executive to enter someone's home they need a warrant from
| a judge, a member of the judicial branch. They now say that
| an "administrative warrant" is enough, issued by an
| immigration judge -- but immigration judges are just
| executive branch employees, so this is saying that the
| executive can decide on its own when it wants to break into
| your house.
| mmooss wrote:
| https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants-
| minneapolis-...
| foogazi wrote:
| Source for the exigent circumstances exemption ?
| gruez wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exigent_circumstance
| scotty79 wrote:
| > if we allow our government
|
| This is so tiresome when people who don't have a single tank
| think they are in a position to allow people with tanks to do
| this or that.
|
| Things happen because their value for people in power exceeds
| the value of your consent. And you have fewer and fewer ways to
| make your consent any more valuable to cross the threshold of
| relevancy.
|
| I know it's an attractive illusion to believe that people have
| a say. But it's time to shake it off because this veil is one
| of the things used for control.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Tell that to the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, the Viet Cong, Mao,
| and George Washington.
|
| Just because the government has tanks does not mean "we have
| tanks and nukes, therefore we'll win" has proven true across
| military history.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Tell your history lesson to a Reaper drone. You can see how
| modern version of people's insurgency could look like in
| modern Gaza. This is exactly how would citizens vs. US play
| out. With Palantir painting the targets on the appropriate
| backs and declaring anyone in the blast radius as domestic
| terrorist.
| AngryData wrote:
| You really think the US government can bomb its own
| citizens with impunity and not completely destroy their
| own industrial base that makes bombing citizens possible?
| The US government would very quickly collapse.
|
| Refineries and factories don't work without people and
| are exceedingly vulnerable to locals.
| tartoran wrote:
| Fear makes a lot of well intended people comply.
| scotty79 wrote:
| At the moment the government with 15% hardcore support is
| rounding up people on the streets en masse, violating
| decades of established practices, while harming
| industrial base that depend on work of those people. And
| somehow pretty much everyone peacefully goes along with
| it. Or get occasionally shot.
| AngryData wrote:
| And? Minnesota is under strike right now and Arizona's AG
| just told its citizens that they can legally shoot ICE if
| they don't properly identify themselves or have a warrant
| or legal cause to arrest them. Still 95% of the nation is
| operating as normal, but that isn't possible when people
| are being actively bombed.
| nilamo wrote:
| The US government has made it pretty clear that we're two
| countries. There's the USA, and "democratic-controlled
| cesspools". Dropping a bomb on Chicago isn't that nuts
| when you don't think of Chicago as part of your country.
| bluGill wrote:
| What makes you think the army will go along with it? Sure
| some will, but expect many soldiers will rebel.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Army goes along with anyone that ensures continual
| financing of the army. Review history of any putsch ever.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| They went along with Iraq despite knowing it was a lie.
|
| "We knew they didn't have weapons of mass destruction
| when we rolled up and didn't immediately get gassed"
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| The Navy is currently blowing up random boats in the
| Caribbean (including double taps on survivors) because
| reasons.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Jan 6th worked, and they didn't even successfully take
| and hold the Capitol.
| Hasz wrote:
| The US has lost multiple wars to goat herders in pickup
| trucks with small arms.
|
| As Ukraine has demonstrated, a shaped charge and consumer
| drone is highly effective against even heavy mechanized
| armor. ERA doesn't work well for multiple hits, and drones
| and HMX/RDX are cheap.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| You underestimate both the capacity of an armed citizenry and
| the hardware that we have at our disposal.
|
| There are in fact privately owned tanks in the US.
| larkost wrote:
| This is misleading. While there are privately owned tanks,
| they are all old, and lack any weapons (other than as a
| battering ram).
|
| They likely could cause a lot of trouble for a local police
| force, but would not stand up to any infantry force in the
| world.
|
| So in an actual conflict with the U.S. government, none of
| those tanks would be more than symbolic. And whole a
| general gorilla insurrection in the U.S. would be nasty,
| examples like Wako demonstrate that even mid-sized stands
| would be severely overwhelmed.
|
| The whole idea that a Second-Amendment rebellion in the
| U.S., absent the military joining on the side of the
| rebellion, is just a fantasy.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| I absolutely think this is going to be a problem. This is a
| government that does not believe in the constitution. They are
| pushing the Ten Commandments in Texas and Louisiana schools,
| encouraging ICE agents to perform warrantless home invasions,
| and arresting US Citizens or their kids in below freezing
| temperatures. They will go much further than we imagined, well
| beyond what even China does to control their population. All
| power must be stripped from them.
| quantumfissure wrote:
| You obviously are not very old or know a lot about US
| history. You should read up, nothing what you mention is new.
| >They are pushing the Ten Commandments in Texas and Louisiana
| schools
|
| 10 Commandments and religion in schools has been a battle
| since the beginning of the public school era. It was a huge
| deal specifically in the 1920's; 60's; and the 90's and
| 2000's. This is nothing new. >ICE agents to
| perform warrantless home invasions, and arresting US Citizens
| or their kids in below freezing temperatures
|
| Wait till you hear about a kid named Elian Gonzalez from
| 2000. One of the most famous examples >This
| is a government that does not believe in the constitution.
|
| I can't wait until you read the part about the PATRIOT Act,
| renewed consistently by both parties and supported by all
| three branches of Government. Also plate readers and tracking
| put in by the Obama administration. Expansion of Border
| Patrol by the same administration.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| People tend to believe that the direction of progress
| should be forward, I guess.
| mmooss wrote:
| Finding some precedents doesn't address the major changes.
| Do you really dispute there have been major changes in
| executive branch behavior?
|
| > Wait till you hear about a kid named Elian Gonzalez
|
| Elian's mother died at sea, trying to reach the US from
| Cuba with Elian. Elian's father sought to bring the child
| back to Cuba, but an uncle in Miami refused to surrender
| custody. Obviously, barring something unusual, a father has
| custody of their child and the INS, courts, and Department
| of Justice agreed. There was an extensive legal process and
| also mediation.
|
| It became a partisan political issue and after all that the
| uncle still refused to surrender Elian. Law enforcement
| forcibly removed the child and gave custody to the father.
|
| I don't see how that is related to the current warrantless
| home invasion policy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli%C3%A1n_Gonz%C3%A1lez
| quantumfissure wrote:
| > Do you really dispute there have been major changes in
| executive branch behavior?
|
| No, but recent actions in the last 20 years, and
| certainly the last year have absolutely proven to me the
| Executive Branch, as I've been saying since the Reagan
| administration, has always had too much power.
|
| > I don't see how that is related to the current
| warrantless home invasion policy.
|
| While I agree, the point is the methods are the same as
| they were back then. INS and Border Patrol is exempt from
| (some) warrants. Border Patrol handled that raid. Badly.
|
| I mean, we can talk about other Executive branches
| abusing their power all day (Waco; Homeland Security/TSA
| searches; DEA Searches; Iran-Contra; CIA Operations in
| the 60s-80's) etc... the point is, nothing ever changes.
| nilamo wrote:
| Just because we were a bad country in the past, does not
| mean we should continue to be a bad one today.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| "BSAB" Fallacy detected.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| > Wait till you hear about a kid named Elian Gonzalez from
| 2000. One of the most famous examples
|
| A brief fact check: Elian Gonzalez was and is not a US
| citizen, nor was he the child of US citizens, nor was he
| arrested by ICE, nor was the raid that resulted in his
| capture performed without a warrant.
|
| I might wait to hear about him until I encounter someone
| with more accurate information.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Remote unlock is on many cars via an API.
|
| It's the same API being used on your phone to remote start /
| unlock / open windows etc.
|
| It's not unlikely to think that ICE has mandated these
| companies to corporate.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| The government will soon be able to geofence areas to keep
| vehicles out of. Wonder if you will get a warning as you get
| close or if they will just cut out.
|
| "Warning, you are approaching a closed zone. Stop your advance.
| Compliance is mandatory. Mobility privileges for this vehicle
| will be revoked"
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Bicycles do not have software to install a kill switch. They do
| not have license plates to be read by surveillance cameras. They
| do not require costly insurance to legally ride. They are not
| powered by fossil fuels. Buy a bike. Learn to maintain it.
| Advocate for safe biking infrastructure in your area.
| mhurron wrote:
| Bicycles are also not a viable replacement for almost all the
| uses of a vehicle. None of this advice is useful.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Beg to differ, they're viable for basically all local use
| cases...
|
| Groceries? Yep. School? Yep. Commuting? Yep. Etc.
|
| They aren't viable for hauling multi-ton loads, or covering
| long distances, that's about it.
| newsoftheday wrote:
| Not in Texas, they're not viable for most uses, the parent
| commenter is completely correct.
|
| The same is true for many states in the US, perhaps even
| most of the US.
| uriegas wrote:
| Agree. Texas is pretty bad. In most places you cannot
| exist without a car. No wonder Mcallen is the most obese
| city the US.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Hence the last sentence of my post:
|
| > Advocate for safe biking infrastructure in your area.
|
| We built dangerous highways. We can build bikeways as
| well.
| willk wrote:
| Depends on where you live. I live in the sticks. 2 hour
| rides to the store on a windy road isn't really viable.
|
| Moreover, time is a limited resource. Even adding 15
| minutes here and there take away time I would have to spend
| with family, work on a project, etc.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Exactly. I love bikes and live near a grocery store, but
| unfortunately getting to that store (or anywhere really)
| requires a few minutes of travel on a dangerously busy
| highway. It's not safe to bike that road regularly.
|
| I once lived somewhere that was half an hour from the
| store _by car_. Thankfully that isn't the case anymore.
| brewdad wrote:
| My in-laws live in a place like that. It's a gorgeous
| property but day to day errands are a challenge. I also
| fear the day one of them needs immediate medical care.
| The nearest urgent care is 20 minutes away and the
| nearest ER is at least 45 minutes away.
| thangalin wrote:
| > that's about it.
|
| Avid cyclist here.
|
| * Extreme Weather: Severe heat, heavy snow, or torrential
| rain can make biking unsafe or impractical without
| specialized gear and high physical endurance.
|
| * Accessibility & Mobility Issues: Individuals with certain
| physical disabilities or chronic health conditions may find
| traditional cycling impossible. (This also affects an aging
| population.)
|
| * Time Constraints: For those with "trip-chaining" needs
| (e.g., daycare drop-off - work - grocery store - gym), the
| extra time required for cycling can be prohibitive.
|
| * Infrastructure: Older adults are more sensitive to "heavy
| traffic" and "lack of safe places." Seniors don't stop
| cycling because they can't do it, but because they don't
| feel safe in traffic. (Good argument for upgrading
| roadways.)
|
| * Care-giving: When parents become dependent on their
| children, often the children need to shuttle their parents
| around. A parent with dementia who escaped into the
| neighbourhood can be rapidly collected and ushered home in
| a car, not so much a bike.
|
| * Theft & Vandalism: I've never had a car stolen. Two
| locked bikes, on the other hand...
| stonogo wrote:
| Severe heat, heavy snow, or torrential rain can make
| driving a car unsafe as well. Individuals with certain
| disabilities, chronic health conditions, or a plethora of
| age may also find driving impossible. For those with
| "trip-chaining" needs, extra time required for parking
| cars can be prohibitive. Old people don't like traffic
| and can escape and run away so fast you have to drive
| them back? And you're seriously including the idea that
| _car theft_ is not a concern? These are some tortured
| arguments.
|
| The correct argument here is "if bicycles become the
| dominant transportation mode, then the government will
| absolutely mandate kill switches for them too." "Bicycles
| don't have software" hasn't been true for years. E-bikes
| and wireless deraillers have been around a long time.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Bikes without software will be around for the foreseeable
| future. They're the cheapest and most plentiful version
| of bike. In the unlikely scenario that all bikes somehow
| become electric, old bikes are much easier to maintain
| than old cars.
|
| My argument to my own post is that cameras that track
| cars and license plates could easily be reconfigured to
| track bikes and pedestrians. In that case there's no
| transportation mode that will save you from surveillance.
| The cameras have to go.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| You do get the idea though, that just because bikes work
| for what you need to do, they won't necessarily work for
| what any other given person needs to do, right?
|
| Also, why the hell have you got wireless derailleurs?
| What is the point? What possible advantage can they have
| over perfectly normal mechanical ones?
| wincy wrote:
| I dunno, I live in what most people would call peak Suburbia
| and have all sorts of bike trails I didn't even know existed
| until I got the electric assisted bike, I can range 5 miles
| away from my house in any direction without having to be on
| any major roads, and have a trailer for doing grocery
| shopping. I went 15 miles away and back one time but took
| quite awhile. All the grocery stores I frequent are within
| this range. When it's warm out, I use my bike for probably
| 90% of my trips out of the house.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Your situation is very much the exception and not the norm
| in most of the US, suburban or not.
| bluGill wrote:
| The exception is that he uses those bike lanes for
| shopping, not just exercise. Every suburb has plenty of
| great biking space (the streets are not busy!), but
| nobody thinks to try to use them that way.
| _verandaguy wrote:
| What?
|
| A vehicle (presumably a car, since bikes are vehicles too)
| gets you and your stuff from point A to point B. Bikes do
| that too, though at a smaller scale.
|
| If your commute or your errands aren't excessively long or
| require the use of a controlled-access highway, a bike's a
| perfectly fine alternative. The limiting factors are seasonal
| road or bike path maintenance and the discipline of other
| road users.
| uriegas wrote:
| Transportation influences urban development. That is why most
| houses have a garage. There is no such thing as private
| transport (streets are public). Transportation has been
| heavily centralized since the New Deal. The bicycle was okay
| for most people living in cities in the 30s, now it is not
| because the government has favored the car infrastructure
| over the last decades. I think we need to start with not
| letting government develop their big infrastructure projects
| which are not resilient. Advocating for the use of bicycles
| might make sense in some places yet bicycle infrastructure is
| required.
| newsoftheday wrote:
| > the government has favored the car infrastructure over
| the last decades
|
| It was a combination of federal push for highways and
| consumer demand for greater distance and easier travel.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Also, federal highways are partially a national security
| issue, and are designed for quickly moving military
| equipment across otherwise isolated areas. Guidelines for
| federal interstates are specified jointly with the DoD to
| ensure that military transport can fit under bridges, and
| that bridges can support their weight. Industry is the
| other most important user, while individual
| consumers/families are the least considered users.
|
| Everyone always assumes that individual choices and
| consumer behavior drives this stuff, and then they wonder
| why nothing changes even though we all started using
| reusable tote bags and LED bulbs. Stop blaming the
| consumer!
|
| (The DoD is the largest institutional polluter in the
| world, by the way.)
| uriegas wrote:
| That is very interesting. It is funny to see how
| influential the federal government has been on society,
| infrastructure and other areas of life. Specially
| considering that some people opposed to it during the
| confederation period because they saw it as another
| centralized authority (anti-federalist papers).
| s-y wrote:
| This is true. But it does not negate the comment you are
| replying to. Once you introduce kids into the mix (esp
| infants) - this whole narrative falls apart quite quick,
| ditto for elders/people with disabilities. Bikes, public
| transport are not a substitute for the vehicle.
|
| I do agree that the vehicle should not be the default
| transportation even if I do consider myself a "car guy".
| recursive wrote:
| Almost all? I think most car trips could have been bike
| trips.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Sure, buy a bike. AND buy an older (but maintainable) vehicle
| for hauling, transporting multiple people, and traveling long
| distances. It's not either or.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Entirely this.
|
| I have a wonderful cargo bike (urban arrow - splurge purchase
| for my 35th birthday and second kid) - I use it for most in-
| city transportation tasks, including picking up kids from
| daycare/school, groceries, trips to restaurants, etc.
|
| I also have a 2011 truck with ~200k miles on it. It's well
| take care of, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon.
| It hauls stuff from home improvement stores, help family
| move, and takes us on vacation.
|
| I've been debating getting bumper stickers for each of them
| along the lines of:
|
| "My other ebike is a truck" - for the bike
|
| and
|
| "My other truck is an ebike" - for the truck
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| I wish I had the use for a cargo bike. They're so cool.
| bluGill wrote:
| I had such an older vehicle until a couple weeks ago when the
| fuel tank supports rusted to the point the tank wasn't
| supported. There was just more maintenance needed than I had
| time to do - it would cost about what I paid for a modern 3
| year old vehicle just to get it running and who knows what it
| will need next year from parts I wouldn't replace. (the new
| car is also electric so much cheaper to drive, though it
| doesn't have the capacity of the 1 ton truck it replaced so
| I'm stuck when I need that)
| iamnothere wrote:
| Just be aware that newer vehicles often have more things
| that can and will fail, and parts seem less standardized
| these days, so you may not be able to keep it running past
| the expected service lifetime.
|
| Older vehicles (depending on the platform) often use common
| parts that are shared even across manufacturers. And third
| party manufacturers keep cranking out new stock for them.
|
| I am hoping that this type of system develops for simple
| no-frills electric vehicles over time. Although laws like
| the one mentioned here keep piling up, increasing vehicle
| complexity and cost of maintenance.
| bluGill wrote:
| Parts were mostly never standardized. The difference is
| when a production run ends they would sell all the
| tooling to a third party that makes parts under their own
| name. (and even before production ends parts that break
| often are worth duplicating). With computers when the
| production run of the LCD, CPU, ... ends nobody is making
| more. Even if you could get the software to install,
| nobody makes the computer at all at any price.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| A city near me (Davis, CA) requires all bicycles to have a
| license and can confiscate unlicensed bicycles.
| wahern wrote:
| As of 2023 municipalities and counties can no longer mandate
| bicycle registration. (See
| https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-
| veh/division-16... as amended by sec. 7 at https://leginfo.le
| gislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...) Though
| universities, like UC Davis, might still be able to require
| it for bikes on campus.
|
| I hadn't heard of the requirement before. Mandatory
| registration originally seems to have been intended to
| address bike theft. All bicycles sold in California must have
| a serial number. A significant number of cities (most?) had
| ordinances requiring registration. But few people knew about
| it and even fewer registered their bikes.
| kittikitti wrote:
| In my car, I regularly get a notice that I'm not being attentive
| and that I should go for a coffee break. It's never right and my
| best guess is that it's always on a straight highway road for
| more than 15 minutes where I'm not moving the wheel very much. I
| don't think this kill switch is a good idea and might attract
| unnecessary attention from law enforcement who might ding me for
| something completely unrelated (going 6mph above speed limit).
| shrubble wrote:
| So imagine you attend a planned protest at the state capitol.
|
| You drive and when within 3 miles your car dies.
|
| You can start it again and drive away, turning around and
| leaving, but if you go further towards the capitol it dies again.
|
| The next day the press reports that the planned protest was very
| sparsely attended.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Do protests have parking?
| dfajgljsldkjag wrote:
| I have heard stories in Minneapolis about ICE remotely unlocking
| cars and opening windows. This seems technically possible to me.
| It makes me worry about public safety if the government has this
| control. I imagine a future where the government disables cars
| based on a score in a Palantir database. We need the right to use
| a car to escape danger. I also think encryption is important for
| defense against tyranny. The Second Amendment should protect
| encryption too.
| bluGill wrote:
| The devil is in the details. The democrats for this (that
| didn't vote for this) need to change the existing law so it has
| strong privacy requirements. Right now the law is that
| regulations must be created - but what those regulations are is
| up to whatever bureaucrat decides to make them: they could be
| good or bad.
| carimura wrote:
| Maybe we should pass laws to ban driving. Then nobody will get
| hurt!
| 4d4m wrote:
| Very gross, overstepping, and creepy.
| tmaly wrote:
| Imagine driving in a remote road on a cold night, no cell signal,
| a deer crosses the road and you swerve to avoid it. The car
| thinks your drunk and kills the car.
|
| You're stuck, no cell signal, good chance of hypothermia.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| A bigger, real-world problem is that cars with lane-keeping
| assist will steer you back towards the deer.
|
| Some of the earlier EVs I tried had lane-keeping assist so
| brutal that it was like trying to steer a car with a broken
| power steering pump belt, if it didn't want you to change lanes
| - genuinely dangerous.
|
| The Kia EV I tried a few weeks ago just felt like it was
| tramlining a bit when I changed lanes without indicating (no
| real need to indicate, on a completely empty road).
| avidiax wrote:
| I'd prefer something with a slightly more libertarian bent:
|
| The hardware is required in new cars. It's illegal to make it
| report false values or for someone other than the driver to
| record. When you press the start button, an LED shines into your
| skin and records fingerprint hash, and blood alcohol. This data
| is recorded/reported only when a public road has been entered or
| crossed, and erased from local storage in 24 hours.
|
| The reporting is optional. You can turn it off. You set it up to
| report to your insurance company. If you don't, your insurance
| rates will probably rise.
|
| What does society get out of this? People are strongly encouraged
| not to drink and drive. They get a clear and unambiguous signal
| if they are over the legal limit or not. We get some insurance
| data about how many people are drinking and driving nonetheless,
| and their actual accident rates. Insurance rates can be higher
| for people at higher risk, and lower for those who are not.
| There's no emergency situation where someone can't activate their
| car. Drivers' "freedom" to drive without insurance or without
| historical monitoring isn't infringed. You can still drive drunk
| on private property without consequence.
|
| We could probably also partially do away with constructive DUI
| (DUI where you are drunk, but asleep in the vehicle and in
| possession of the keys). You can set a maximum startup BAC in the
| car computer. You can lower it, effective in 8 hours. Your sober
| self can agree that future you shouldn't drive drunk, and even if
| you sleep in your car, the police can't show that you were in
| control of the vehicle.
| ivansmf wrote:
| The existence of a kill switch plus tracking in legislation very
| likely means the manufacturers wanted to track and sell user data
| and needed a scapegoat to avoid customer backlash. I would
| profoundly surprised if we don't find a lobbyist at the bottom of
| this.
| exabrial wrote:
| > A Republican attempt to cut off federal funding tied to vehicle
| "kill switch" enforcement failed in the House this week, leaving
| intact a law directing the Department of Transportation to
| develop mandatory impaired-driving prevention systems in new
| vehicles.
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