[syntheticnature]

I once helped someone get their car home after one of these was installed. Their license would not be returned until it was installed, but they weren't allowed to leave it on the lot. Someone else drove it there, and then I got to experience the breathalyzer to drive it home.

The interesting part is how bad the interlock was. First off, it can apparently randomly not work, so you get three tries. Worse yet, per the official documentation, apparently they can misdetect an ignition while driving at speed, and when that happens you have to pull over and blow within thirty seconds. Now, this is not something you can do while driving, as you have to look at the camera while you do it, on top of needing to have a deep breath. There's no motivation to improve this, because the customer is the legal system, not the person who has to have it installed

[helterskelter]

I knew somebody with an interlock and if they were around too much car exhaust in a relatively enclosed space, the ethanol in the air would trip the detector apparently.

[wildzzz]

Having to blow while you're already driving is supposed to be a feature. It's to dissuade people from successfully turning on their car, immediately drinking, and then driving.

[Auracle]

30 seconds seems a bit fast to force that though, no? There’s not always a safe place to pull over.

[stronglikedan]

If it only kicks in at 45 or lower (i.e., not the highway) then there's always a safe place to pull over. I have no idea how it actually does work though, thankfully.

[ranger_danger]

I take it you've never been stuck in slow traffic on a long narrow bridge, or highway sections that surround you with concrete barriers on both sides for miles. There is nowhere to pull over.

[lazide]

Stuck in stop and go traffic on the freeway doesn’t sound like a good place to me, but I’ve never had a DUI so meh?

[shimman]

Is this comment a joke or do you not understand how dangerous it is to ask a driver to blow into a breathalyzer while operating a vehicle?

All this seems to be is a company collecting corporate welfare while doing the bare minimum. Such companies should both be sanctioned and have their leadership investigated for potential fraud.

If you receive public dollars to function, the public should expect some modicum of sensibility and accountability.

[KumaBear]

I think they shouldn’t be driving in the first place. Suspend DL for one year and move on.

[array_key_first]

The main problem is that, in a lot of parts of the US, your options are "drive or be homeless".

The ideal solution is needing less driving overall. But excessively punishing people doesn't fix the problem. They're still gonna drive, most likely.

[chmod775]

If they set their own place on fire, they're also homeless. Just as self-inflicted, but significantly less dangerous to third parties than driving drunk.

Driving while drunk is not a silly little mistake. A third of all fatal crashes involve drunk drivers. Letting these people drive at all even with a breathalyzer is an abomination. You can expect them to have a similar disregard for other fundamentals of safe driving.

[array_key_first]

I'm not commenting on the morality of drunk driving. I'm commenting on the effectiveness of just fucking them over, that being, not effective at all.

There's this thing in the mainstream where people feel like the best way to handle people doing bad things is to just pummel them into the ground as much as possible.

While that might feel the most justified, that doesn't actually solve the problem. Suspending licenses doesn't stop drunk people from driving, because cars are more or less a necessity.

So, knowing it's a necessity, we have to design the car around that and enforce safe operation by an alcoholic.

Which is a stop-gap solution. A better solution is making cars not a necessity. But until then, we should do the stop-gap.

[sublinear]

This is obviously untrue.

It wasn't that long ago these devices weren't mandatory and they'd just suspend your license.

I am actually curious now whether that was more effective since the offender had to endure the judgment of the person in their life giving them a ride to work.

[array_key_first]

I don't understand why this is obviously untrue. Do we have any reason to believe that those people didn't just... continue to drive with a suspended license?

Not to mention DUI is a fairly recent development. In the 20th century, it was pretty easy to drive drunk and get away with it.

[syntheticnature]

The person I mentioned in my story upthread had the one-year suspension followed by the interlock requirement for another year

[londons_explore]

Someone who drives drunk ought to drive with the interlock for life.

Generally driving drunk is a sign of addiction.... And that can come back anytime, and killing bystanders is clearly a worse outcome.

[ryandrake]

You can get a DUI without drinking[1][2], and you can get a DUI without driving[3].

1: https://www.duilexington.com/blog/2020/september/can-you-be-...

2: https://www.carscoops.com/2026/01/tennessee-highway-patrol-s...

3: https://www.sevenslegal.com/criminal-attorney/can-you-get-a-...

[MisterTea]

> Generally driving drunk is a sign of addiction....

No it is not.

[mothballed]

Unfortunately driving on a suspended is mostly not enforced either, so giving them the carrot of keeping their license is the only thing the judicial branch can do that has much sway (other than jailing them) without being able to order the executive branch to change.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

LOL. Do you know how many people are driving with suspended licenses now? The number would skyrocket if systems like these didn't exist.

Especially in rural areas, you can get away with driving on a suspended license for a pretty long time before a cop catches you. I know someone who was probably (she wouldn't admit to it) doing it for at least a year.

[ourmandave]

Especially in rural areas

Once while hot air balloon chasing, we saw a guy driving his 4 wheel drive in the ditches along a gravel road and found out later from someone he had a suspended license.

They said he figured the cops couldn't stop him if he stuck to the ditches and didn't operate on the official roadway.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

My wife used to tend bar at a place where one of the regulars would drive there on a tractor for a similar reason.

[joquarky]

I've wondered what happens with these when a forest fire is bearing down.

[SilverElfin]

Isn’t there a proposed law to install these into every single new car?

[sigmoid10]

Nothing specific yet, but the legal groundwork has been laid both in the US and in the EU. Starting in July, all new cars sold in the EU will need to be able to fit after-market alcohol interlocks. In the US, interlocks are already mandatory for convicted DUIers in most states, but new cars will also have to come with factory installed drunk driving prevention technology in the coming years. We just don't know how far that mandate will go eventually.

[pas]

obviously it will require an age verification, also you need to tell Google that you want to go somewhere 24 hours in advance, and Apple gets 30% of the revenue that gas stations make.

[londons_explore]

There is no security protocol though. It will be trivial to buy an interlock which always returns 'ok to drive'.

[overfeed]

Manufacturers are now encrypting Canbus traffic, voluntarily on current and future models.

Buying or selling tools designed to break the law is already illegal - trivial or not. If a driver gets a DUI and possess a NOOP interlock, they are getting an additional charge, and get to help am investigation into the illicit device supply chain.

[m3047]

> Buying or selling tools designed to break the law is already illegal - trivial or not.

I'm curious how this will play out. The "John Deer" exemption from the DMCA comes to mind, not sure if it's strictly for farm equipment or still in effect.

[kube-system]

There is no proposal to require these janky ass aftermarket units, nor require any type of interlock at all.

NHTSA was directed to write some guidelines/rules around the implementation of passive impairment detection as OEM features. They have yet to do so, probably because it is flaky technology.

My guess is that the final rule implementation will be similar to the distracted driver detection that is already in many new vehicles.

[astura]

No, the 2021 infrastructure bill required automakers to install passive technology (passive meaning not requiring any specific actions from the driver) to prevent drunk driving by some future date. However, such technology doesn't really exist yet.

[Auracle]

Eh, with lane keeping features I don’t think it’d be hard to at least detect someone swerving a lot. Granted, I don’t think that would detect people that aren’t super drunk, but it’s something.

I might be wrong on that assumption - I don’t drink, myself.

[volkl48]

As is commonly commented on by cartoonists: In plenty of places driving consistently within the lines might be the actual sign you're drunk. Because the roads/potholes are bad enough that you shouldn't be, if you value your suspension.

[Auracle]

I live in a northern state so I certainly have experience with potholes, but I've never seen a road so bad that it would cause a false positive like that.

Our local dying mall though? Phew. It amazes me whoever owns the mall doesn't at least go out there with some asphalt themselves.

[clickety_clack]

Old cars sound better and better every year now.

[nslsm]

They’ll just make it illegal for you to drive them.

[iso1631]

Its illegal to drive under the influence now. "Just making something illegal" doesn't work

[mothballed]

Meanwhile in much of the USA registration laws aren't enforced. The last time my car was totaled (hit and run) the police didn't even show up for that either so my insurance company just ate the whole cost. DUI laws themselves are largely only enforced to the extent the accused consents to bothering to show up to court.

[bri3d]

Not really the same. There are proposals to require OEMs to install driver monitoring, but it’s usually IR camera based rather than blow in a tube fuel cell based. These systems are probably going to be a mess but the technology isn’t really comparable to DUI interlock devices and the unreliability of those systems is orthogonal.

[profdevloper]

I was the DD for my friend's bachelor party and as we were leaving the bar, I saw this older gentleman struggling to start his vehicle. I had a hard time making out what he was telling me, but it looked like he had one of these devices on his car. Being the Good Samaritan that I am, I blew into the device, his car started, and he went happily on his way.

[joachimma]

I assume you're joking, Either way. One morning when I took the bus to work the bus driver had repeated problems getting the bus to start due to the breathalyser. I heard him complain to the passenger behind him, about it malfunctioning. The passenger volunteered to test this theory, by also blowing into the device. The driver handed him the hose, the passenger gave it a go, the bus started, and the driver shrugged his shoulders, and off we went, only slightly delayed.

I'm not sure if this is preventable.

[mrguyorama]

Why does the bus have a breathalyzer rather than a damn manager who can fire the worker who smells of booze?

[donkey_brains]

Dunno where the parent comment was referring to, but different countries have different standards. In Colombia the bus transit stations all have breathalyzer stations and the drivers have to pass the breathalyzer before starting their shifts. It was pretty wild to see as an outsider but completely unremarkable to everyone else.

[syntheticnature]

If it's as flaky as my experience upthread suggests, maybe it was just that. At least, that's what I hope, for the sake of those on the bus

[DANmode]

Lots of troll-only accounts, recently (flagged this comment for this reason).

Is an email the best way to report these?

[MisterTea]

Guess your joke about bypassing breath interlocks didn't go over too well.