This refers to the federal infrastructure bill, which directed NHTSA to issue a regulation requiring technical systems to detect and prevent impaired driving. Here’s a status report from NHTSA to Congress from December:

https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2024-12/report-t...

Wait -- I have to pay for a breathalizer in my new vehicle because other people can't follow the law? That's BS. I don't drink alcohol and I hate everything about this.

When it comes to motor vehicles we're CONSTANTLY paying for other people's mistakes. The unfortunate reality is that driving is the number 1 cause of death for most demographics.

We cannot treat it like we treat other things, simply due to the extreme risk. That means we have to prevent accidents any way we can and put safety nets where we can.

Yes, it sucks that now you're going to have to pay marginally more for your vehicle. If it's any consolation, you're already paying 10x more than you should for the variety of safety structures in place, research, testing, regulations, policing, etc. The fruits of this are real, though. Please look into vehicle fatality statistics.

Tbf the reason we treat autos risk like this is less about the extreme risk of autos and more about politics and culture.

There 1001 ways we could ensure that most of the cost and externalities of driving are not foisted on others, but we don’t do that because so many people drive and most vote, if they think getting fewer auto deaths means they’ll have to pay $0.01 for parking or that they might be 1% more likely to be caught when they speed, they reject it.

So instead we socialize it, pushing costs, inconveniences, injuries and death on others.

Uninsured/underinsured motorist insurance are literally line items on my car insurance bill.

Those were on my late wife's bill too.

After she got hit, ultimately leading to her death in time, by an uninsured guy we had to get a lawyer and fight Eire Insurance for three years for them to honor that line on the bill.

I'm so sorry for your loss. It always crushes me to hear of yet another family torn apart due to our car dependence. Thank you for sharing your story.

> I have to pay for a breathalizer in my new vehicle because other people can't follow the law? That's BS.

Not to be too pedantic, but this is the nature of most taxes and regulation. It's part of living in a society.

This isn't an argument for absolutely any cost one should choose to impose. I had a hard time finding exact stats but one should I think assume that less than 1/10th of 1% of cars have such a device installed.

This means that one is installing 1000 devices for each one in use. It should make more sense to me to provide a means to communicate with such a device wirelessly and software support for making starting contingent on such communication.

Off-the-grid homesteading is looking more and more appealing every year.

Fill your boots, though tbc, cars aren’t really an off the grid type of device, unless your homestead has an oil well and a refinery :)

Also at some point you’re gonna need new boots

This isn't reddit