Buried in the Infrastructure Bill Is a Plan to Install Sensors in All New Cars to Monitor Americans
By Jacob Gurney
August 6, 2021 at 1:21pm
Buried in the midst of the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure package is a plan designed to monitor people in their private vehicles.
Tucked away in the 2,702-page bill is a provision requiring all new motor vehicles to be equipped with technology to prevent drunken driving, according to the text of the bill (see Page 1,066).
In Section 24220 of the legislation, titled “Advanced Impaired Driving Technology,” it states that no later than three years after the bill takes effect, the secretary of transportation will issue a rule to create a “Federal motor vehicle safety standard” that would require all “passenger motor vehicles manufactured after the effective date of that standard to be equipped with advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology.”
The bill lists two primary definitions of what this technology might entail while noting that it could be a combination of these two systems.
First, the technology can include a system to “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired and prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected.”
Second would be a system to “passively and accurately detect whether the blood alcohol concentration” of a driver is at or above the legal limit and limit the vehicle’s operation if this is detected.
The rationale for this requirement is “to ensure the prevention of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles.”