In this case, there is a kernel of truth: The 2021-2022 "Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act" (https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684...) directs NHTSA to develop an in-vehicle driver system to detect some definition of impaired driving.
In particular, "SEC. 24220" (searchable by that string in the above bill text.) directs NHTSA to either write and publish a rule implementing such, or make a yearly report to Congress as to why said technology is not implementable.
This is the 2026 report: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2026-03/Report-t...
In essence, they state that while they have prototypes, the technology is not yet sufficient. There's nothing in a proposed or final rule yet, to the best of my knowledge.
Personally, I'm wary of this type of rule-making, as it essentially remains 'hidden' from public comment until the notices of final rule-making, making it in my eyes an end-run around the Administrative Procedure Act. I don't expect that to be a very widely held position though.
(Edit: I linked the 2023 report first, not the 2026 one. Whoopsy.)
We'll have to see how the regulators interpret it.
[1] - https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ58/PLAW-117publ58.pdf
Business idea: Faraday headwear, so that the tinfoil hat can store the phone. For that fashionably paranoid person in your life.
in my experience it's actually a bad thing for industry to add very specific requirements for them to follow
Many vehicles, IIRC including Teslas, already have this safety feature.
Tesla does absolutely nothing like this. The closest things are that it'll kick you out of AP/FSD if you're screwing around with your phone, and it'll advise you use AP/FSD if you're driving manually and pinging between lane lines.
It’s also a hypothetical at this point because the system doesn’t exist, and there’s no consensus about whether it’s “fail open,” vulnerable to a centimeter square patch of electrical tape, or if it can randomly brick your car when it has errors. I would bet on the former.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_eu/GUID-65BF21B...
But this law would step beyond that. It does require that the car "prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected."
I'm not a transit safety expert, but that itself seems potentially dangerous - even just limiting speed, if it happens on a highway, could be difficult to handle. And of course, the detection systems will have false positives.
My prediction is that, in the end, this is simply going end up being a system to steer you off to the side of the road if you pass out at the wheel.
That makes it worse, not better. Contrary to popular belief, "$BAD_THING is widespread" is not a defense of $BAD_THING.
