Back around Thanksgiving, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) floated the idea of mandating passive Breathalyzer systems in cars that would require everyone – from the repeat drunken driver right on down to your teetotaling granny – to prove they’re not three sheets to the wind before hitting the highway.
This is a terrible idea not only for the way it tramples upon our all-too-trampled civil liberties, but also for the practical matter of inevitable mechanical failure. Any such devices are bound to create false positives or simply break, either of which will cause headaches for innocent drivers.
Buzz reader John Libertine knows of what I speak first-hand. His tale:
This (proposal) reminded me of the time that I got into my Oldsmobile Aurora after lunch one day, turned the key and failed to be rewarded by the sound of a GM engine coming online.
The dashboard display read “Unable to read passkey – clean your ignition key or try another.”
The culprit was of course the rudimentary security provided by having different resistor values embedded in the keys of the era. Luckily I was able to get the system to read the key after repeated attempts, the only consequence being that I was late returning to work. I could just as easily have been stranded in a snowstorm by this “feature.”
An extra layer of interlocks to detect blood alcohol content, easily overridden (remember the “no start without seat belt on” phase?), adding reliability issues, adding extra cost to the retail price … when I don’t even drink? No way.
After an early burst of publicity, the MADD proposal appears to have settled into some dark corner … but it will be out again, of that much you can be certain.
