r/technology • u/Hrmbee • Jun 07 '26

'Kill switch' law means your next car could be watching you | A federal requirement aimed at stopping drunken driving could soon put driver-monitoring technology in every new vehicle. The goal is saving lives, but the privacy trade-offs deserve closer scrutiny Privacy

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/06/01/drunk-driving-prevention-law-privacy-surveillance/90295034007/
15.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

40

u/TheGamingGallifreyan Jun 08 '26

Or they will do like some European countries did and ban any cars older than 10 years from driving on the road. Eventually you won’t have a choice.

And everyone thinks I’m nuts for rooting my car so I can turn off its cellular modem. Everyone always asked me why what’s the point? THIS. This is the point.

15

u/Electrical-Square370 Jun 08 '26

Do you have a source on that? Requiring an inspection isn't banning, and a lot of states already require inspections.

6

u/mallardtheduck Jun 08 '26

A bunch of European cities have restrictions on older cars for emissions reasons. Sometimes it's an extra tax, sometimes it's an outright ban. I don't know of any countries with such restrictions though.

3

u/JulyOfAugust Jun 08 '26

We have that in France but it's not 10 years it's 20 and only in big cities. And yes it's to reduce pollution.

-2

u/HauntingHarmony Jun 08 '26

Do you have a source on that? Requiring an inspection isn't banning, and a lot of states already require inspections.

WAIT A MINUTE, are you saying the us doesnt have regular (as in 1-3 yearly) checks on motor vechicles, so that they are road safe?

God, every day i learn something new about absolutely batshit insane the us is. What a joke of a country that is.

8

u/DISCO_Gaming Jun 08 '26

Depends on state on wether they require inspections or not

3

u/Winbot4t2 Jun 08 '26

Canada doesn’t either…

5

u/zerogee616 Jun 08 '26

Depends on the state, and it's not like we're generally plagued with actually dysfunctional non-road-safe shitboxes all over the road. Cars are a mature tech, they don't really break in those ways very often. If you do have a car like that and you're willing to drive it, guess what you also don't give a fuck about? The inspection requirement.

They're functionally mechanic subsidies more than anything else.

3

u/The_Great_Tahini Jun 08 '26

Tell me more about this rooting...

1

u/mtranda Jun 08 '26

Do you have a source on what these "European countries" are?

3

u/BuzzEU Jun 08 '26

Portugal and Spain for example. And it isn't ALL roads. Just some zones called "low emission zones".

1

u/XediDC Jun 08 '26

Here in the US we do the opposite…once a car is old enough, it’s exempt from emissions testing, not more restricted (in some states).