Big government wants to ride shotgun in your car — that’s the latest from a new regulation proposed by the Biden Administration. Everywhere you drive, government-mandated technology will monitor and control your driving. This is the nanny state at its worst! When Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 they included a requirement that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) develop federally mandated monitoring technology. This technology will:

• Passively detect intoxication levels and disable your car, and;
• Passively detect and monitor “impaired” driving — monitoring you constantly, likely with cameras, sensors, and AI technology.

Not only is this technology a violation of fundamental American values including privacy and the presumption of innocence, but it does so using completely experimental technology that is not ready to be implemented. This will cause incredible failures that add more risk to the driver than it removes. Here are some suggested questions about the technology & plan:

• How would the technology work? Video analytics technology is not even advanced enough to detect emotion. How can it be expected to detect intoxication or any form of impairment?
• How will this regulation account for false positives? Would you feel comfortable knowing that false positives could cost lives if it delayed an emergency visit to the ER, or prevented someone from fleeing a natural disaster?
• Where will the camera footage and sensor data be stored? How will you ensure its security from cyber-criminals seeking to steal personal data?
• If the car is to disable itself mid-trip if it believes the driver has been compromised, how is this to be done safely? Especially, for example, if the car is on a highway? This kind of technology has been in development for years and is still unavailable.
• How can Americans be expected to afford cars when the R&D costs of developing and implementing this technology will be passed on to the consumer?
• Why would Americans buy any car that treats them as presumed guilty even before they’ve gotten behind the wheel?

Biden’s NHTSA has now initiated the first round of the rulemaking process and the general public has until March 5, 2024 to submit comments in opposition. While every death due to drunk driving is a completely avoidable tragedy, the government is a sledgehammer, not a precision instrument. This regulation infringes on our liberties and its cost will outweigh its assumed benefits. Under this regulation:

• Cars will become even more expensive: New car prices have already risen by 60 percent over the last decade, and this regulation will only increase costs.
• False positives will endanger consumers: Even with a 99.9% accuracy, you could have a million false positives per day. This means your car won’t start or may automatically slow down or even pull over while you’re driving.
• Your privacy is at risk: In Biden’s America, car thefts are on the rise, and now cyber thieves will potentially have hours of recording and monitoring of your car rides.
• Your rights are compromised: This intrusive “Big Brother” technology threatens your personal freedom and presumption of innocence.

Even NHTSA doubts that such technology will work as intended, writing: “Little data is available…on which combination of sensors and indicators of driver state, if any, would achieve greater accuracy and reliability of impairment detection.” More From Heritage Action: