Last week MADD kicked off a campaign to get its supporters to contact their congressional representatives and urge them to vote for a bill to require ignition interlock technology for all vehicles sold in America. The email looked like this:
MADD’s Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving is closing in on a major milestone but we need your help. As you know, MADD is working to “turn cars into the cure” by supporting advanced alcohol detection technology which will one day allow cars to determine if the driver is drunk. If the driver’s BAC is at or above .08, the car won’t start. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates this technology could save over 8,000 lives per year.
Last month, Maryland Congressman John Sarbanes offered an amendment to the Motor Vehicle Safety Act to provide the critical funding necessary to fully develop this exciting new technology. The amendment was approved in the House Energy and Commerce Committee by voice vote.
Next week we expect the U.S. House of Representatives to consider the Motor Vehicle Safety Act and MADD needs you to contact your congressman and ask for their support of this legislation which could literally eliminate drunk driving.
Please take action and urge your member of congress to eliminate drunk driving by “turning cars into the cure.”
Certain technology like Raman spectroscopy and transdermal alcohol monitoring may make it possible for automobiles to detect whether a person has been drinking and to what approximate extent. MADD’s goal is to make this technology mandatory in all cars, regardless of whether the driver of the vehicle has ever consumed alcohol or not. While it sounds good on paper, there are a host of problems with this. The device can and will malfunction and could strand an innocent person in a dangerous place; The device can and will mistake innocent molecular compounds for alcohol but then the car won’t start; Breath/blood alcohol content is never static, it is constantly fluctuating, so the car might start because the person is under the limit but they become over the limit during the drive. Let us also not forget that the American automobile industry was just recently “bailed out” because it is hurting. Making cars more expensive, more complicated and more likely to fail is not a good recipe for recovery for that industry.
The real overriding concern with all of this is that we again accept the premise that everyone should be presumed guilty and that we need big government to protect us by regulating us more, even if it means spending more money for cars. I reject both of those as completely un-American. Kansas DUI law continues to get more and more restrictive and severe, and more and more power is given to the government every week. Kansas DUI cases from the appellate courts have overwhelmingly been favoring the right of government to intrude into the individual’s life, to take away driving privileges on mere accusations and assumptions, and to brand, imprison and monitor people based upon the guesswork of the pseudo-science surrounding Kansas DUI enforcement.
This issue with the interlock device technology that MADD wants to put on all cars will start slowly. State legislatures are already requiring interlock for first time DUI offenders in Kansas and many other states. MADD wants to take it to the federal level. Perhaps next they will be saying all young people between 15 and 25 are required to have the interlock because they are “high risk”. Then they’ll add those who accumulate a certain number of infractions or “points” on their license. Then soon it will be each and every car sold in the USA, and each and every driver in the USA. First, they’ll come for the drinkers, then they’ll come for the youth, then they’ll come for the speeders and then they will come for you.