No Technology for Kill Switch…Yet – and Don’t Call it a Kill Switch

Buried in the massive 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act were a few lines calling for the installation in all new cars starting in 2026 of a system that would detect whether or not the driver was drunk and, if so, keep the car from starting and even stop it if it were already moving.

The tech was immediately – and properly – dubbed a “kill switch” by people concerned about things like personal privacy, the right to move about the country as you wish, and whether or not said system – and its collected data – would be “accessible” by, say, a government agency.

There was another question – how could/would it work?

Well, at least the last question has been answered: it can’t/won’t, maybe never and certainly not by the 2026 deadline.

The tech simply doesn’t exist.

This fact was made clear earlier this week when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released its “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (somewhere, a bureaucrat just got his wings) on the topic on Tuesday and when NHTSA Acting Administrator Ann Carlson testified in front of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s subcommittee on Highways and Transit (there goes another set of wings) on Wednesday – (click through to 2 hour, 39 minutes).

Carlson admitted the technology does not yet exist to “passively” determine a driver’s state of inebriation, though she pointed to a few “promising” possibilities being researched.  Carlson added that it is crucial for NHTSA to create a system that essentially eliminates the possibility of “false positives.”

Even if whatever system is created had an accuracy rate of 99.9%, that would mean about one million errors would occur every day around the nation, considering about a billion car trips are taken.

That translates to about 12 erroneous “sorry, but I won’t let you drive me because I think you’re drunk” car shutdowns every second.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) – who tried but failed to pass an amendment to end the program a few weeks ago, said at the hearing that this possibility – and the fact the tech doesn’t exist yet – seems to make the entire endeavor pointless.

“This is a wish, not a plan,” Massie said.

And even NHTSA’s “Advance Notice…” appears to support that statement.  As Carlson noted in her testimony, it asks questions about how to make it work – a lot of questions.

“Private and public researchers have also made significant progress on technologies that are capable of measuring and quantifying driver state and performance (e.g., hands on the steering wheel, visual gaze direction, lane position,” states the notice.  “However, harnessing these technologies for drunk and impaired driving detection and prevention remains a significant challenge.”

Beyond drunk, NHTSA has decided to include detecting drowsy and districted driving as part of the system.  However, “(D)ue to technology immaturity and a lack of testing protocols, drugged driving is not being considered in this notice,” so feel free to light up that crack pipe one more time before unlocking your car.

NHTSA even wants to know if it’s a good idea in the first place, asking “(H)ow would an alcohol-impaired person react to their vehicle not starting, and how can/should this be considered? Would some individuals decide to walk to their destination in the road, increasing their risk of being hit by another vehicle?”

There is also the possibility that, while keeping a drunk driver off the road, what could then be the other dangers to the driver? “For example, this could result in an alcohol-impaired person being stranded late at night for hours and susceptible to being a victim of crime or environmental conditions (e.g., weather). Or an alcohol-impaired camper may need to use his/her vehicle to escape from a rapidly approaching wildfire or environmental conditions (weather).”

As to the system itself, there are a number of possibilities as to how – and when – it would work.  To detect blood-alcohol, for example, a steering wheel or ignition switch or gear shift could be fitted with an infrared skin reader to test for alcohol in the driver’s system when they make contact.  This would be, according to NHTSA, part of a “passive” system (as required by the law) because the driver would have to do these things anyway in the course of starting the vehicle.

But even with those passive system there are problems – for example, the use of hand sanitizer (imagine that during COVID…well, you couldn’t leave your house anyway, so…)

Since it is “active,” having a driver blow directly into a device is not being considered, but NHTSA does wonder about the idea of measuring breath passively. To its credit, NHTSA specifically calls out the problem of such a passive system picking up scents from a passenger or even spilled alcohol (note – trust me, as a former bartender I can say that would be a problem for anyone working in the restaurant industry.)

Other ideas to determine one’s level of hammeredness (drunk), sleepiness (drowsy), or textiness (distracted) involve monitoring pupil dilation, determining proper line of sight of the driver’s gaze, speech patterns (“What seems to be the officer, problem?”) and even the time of day – should the system only be set to work between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m. when the majority of drunk driving accidents occur, for example?

The notice also wonders about the personal characteristics of the driver – if the driver has a lazy eye, for example, how could the system know that?  Also, the notice admits that “high functioning” alcoholics present very differently from other non-regular drinkers even though they may have the same amount of alcohol in their system, throwing off the determinate algorithm.

One note on drunk driving statistics – in 1982, drunk driving was the cause for about 50% of all automotive fatalities. It’s now 30% and NHTSA does admit that distracted driving (stop texting!!) is vastly under-reported as the cause of a wreck.

These are potential issues related to being able to start a car – as to the car deciding you’ve had enough while you are driving, that is another – potentially extremely dangerous – matter.

Since there could be a false positive in the start-up action,  “a second confirmation of driver
impairment from a driver monitoring system would be needed. Driver performance measures, such as eye gaze, lane weaving, etc. would be the primary indicators of impairment and utilize evidence of alcohol as a supplementary indicator for alcohol impairment.”

Though “ideally” this would not happen, that does mean that the car could decide to shut down while it is moving.

This is where the term “kill switch” comes back into play. Despite every official “fact checker” saying the system was not a “kill switch,” it clearly is because it will be able to stop a moving car.  

Earlier this year, Robert Strassburger, president and CEO of the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, which is involved in a public-private partnership with NHTSA to develop an alcohol detection system for vehicles, claimed to the Associated Press that the system has “nothing to do with giving law enforcement access to a kill switch” and he told USA Today that “(N)othing in the infrastructure bill gives any law enforcement or third party access to any information on vehicles or control of any technology installed in vehicles.”

First, the matter of third party access is a lie – there has to be, even just to update the system.  Second, the “fact checkers,” as is their wont, pull a bait-and-switch to pooh-pooh the term “kill switch” by limiting the concept to only third-party activation.  That would be, in essence, a “murder switch” and not a kill switch, which includes, by any stretch of the definition, something in your car that will make it stop without your permission.

The NHTSA notice makes it crystal clear that such a system would be able to stop a car somehow.  As to exactly how that would happen, here are some ideas from the notice:

Limp Home Mode – once impairment (or incapacitation) is detected, the vehicle speed is reduced to a lower speed for a given amount of time. Adaptive cruise control with a long following gap setting could be turned on to prevent a forward crash with other vehicles. Systems may provide the driver a warning that the driver needs to leave the highway. (potential downside – car going 15 miles per hour on the freeway.)

Stop in Lane – depending upon the vehicle manufacturer, the vehicle reduces speed and ultimately stops in the lane after a given time period of unresponsiveness of the driver (typically when the Level 2 driving automation system is engaged), putting on emergency flashers and unlocking the doors for easier entry into the vehicle. This presents a new hazard to motorists approaching the stopped vehicle, and a different kind of hazard for occupants of the stopped vehicle (i.e., the original hazard was the drunk driver, but now the hazard is potentially being hit by other motorists). Some SAE Level 2 driving automation systems make use of this feature if the driver becomes unresponsive and some also can call for assistance.

Pull over to the Slow Lane (Right Lane) or Shoulder – some vehicle manufacturers have introduced more advanced concept or production vehicles that can pull over to the side of the road or into the “slow lane” once driver impairment (or incapacitation) is detected when Level 2 systems are engaged.  This requires the vehicle to be equipped with lane-changing capability, where a vehicle needs to be able to understand whether there are vehicles or other road users in (or approaching) its blind spot in order to make a lane change. Modern vehicles increasingly have the technology to detect lane lines and blind spots, and to automate lane changes, under certain circumstances.

The notice obliquely references “privacy” concerns, but more often address “consumer acceptance” and how people will try to avoid/disable the system. 

Little known fact: under federal law, the owner of a car can futz with safety systems, which the “kill switch” would fall under.  From the notice:

“The Safety Act also contains a “make inoperative” provision, which prohibits certain entities from knowingly modifying or deactivating any part of a device or element of design installed in or on a motor vehicle in compliance with an applicable FMVSS (safety system). Those entities include vehicle manufacturers, distributors, dealers, rental companies, and repair businesses. Notably, the “make inoperative” prohibition does not apply to individual vehicle owners. While NHTSA encourages individual vehicle owners not to degrade the safety of their vehicles or equipment by removing, modifying, or deactivating a safety system, the Safety Act does not prohibit them from doing so.”

Rolling out a safety system that every mechanically inclined person (count me out; asking me to disable  a car safety system would be like asking me to eat a moving rhinoceros with chopsticks – it just won’t happen) could legally disable would lessen the safety impact – and therefore point – of said system.

Though it is clear the system will not be ready for a 2026 rollout, may never work at all, is incredibly invasive no matter how “passive,” and is a Trojan Horse to get a piece of government tech into cars to prepare for things like vehicle miles traveled (VMT) taxes – https://californiaglobe.com/fr/vehicle-miles-traveled-tax-gets-a-killer-boost/ , it’s not dead yet.

Despite the 2026 deadline, the law still allows NHTSA to take another ten years after that to get it right.

Just in case you were worried.

Oh, and here is the link to the entire “Advance Notice…” Feel free to read it or not, but if you wish to comment on the project you can find out how to – and who to call – on pages 2 and 3 of the 99 page notice:  https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2023-12/anprm-advanced-impaired-driving-prevention-technology-2127-AM50-web-version-12-12-23.pdf 

For those who want to know more about Ann Carlson – a climate loon from UCLA who once wrote that most people “could benefit from a simpler life” but will not “engage in dramatic behavioral change unless forced” – check out this link:  https://freebeacon.com/energy/meet-the-biden-climate-official-who-wants-to-force-you-to-live-a-simpler-life/