Once upon a time, Americans didn’t have to prove they hadn’t been drinking before they were allowed to drive. At least, not before they had been convicted of drunk driving, after due process and by a court. Then a judge might order them to have their vehicle fitted with a device they had to “blow” into to establish they were sober before the car’s engine could be started.
Those not convicted of drunk driving only had to worry about being stopped by a cop if they were driving in such a way as to give a cop reason to suspect that maybe they’d been drinking.
That, of course, was back in the days when Americans who were out for a drive didn’t have to stop at “checkpoints” where they were required to prove they hadn’t been drinking, even when they’d given no reason to suspect they may have been. Sometimes, this entailed performing physical acrobatics; sometimes by breathing into a machine called a Breathalyzer.
If the driver refused, he was (and is) treated as presumptively “drunk” – and his state-granted privilege to drive rescinded on that basis alone. It did not require any evidence that the driver had in fact been drinking. Much less that he or she was actually drunk – even as defined by a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) standard so minuscule it defined a person as “drunk” if their blood contained a percentage of alcohol (.08 most states; headed for .05 in many) achievable via the drinking of as little as two beers. No other evidence of “drunk” driving – such as erratic driving – was or is necessary in court to convict a person of “drunk” driving.
Soon, new vehicles will require their unconvicted drivers to prove they haven’t been drinking before their vehicle will allow them to drive. Their vehicle will be used to prevent them from driving at any time over the course of their drive, too – if it considers them to be “drunk” – and it won’t be just that. 
The decree – in larval form that is styled an “advanced notice of proposed rulemaking” – has just been announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has as much to do with safety these days as the FDA has to do with the wholesomeness of food and the safety of drugs. In fact, the NHTSA concerns itself chiefly with furthering the agenda of controlling what we’re allowed to drive and how we’re allowed to drive.
The distinction is as important as that between asking someone to give you some money and the government “asking” you to hand it over.
There’s another important distinction – that between being “drunk” and being “impaired.” One involves the consumption of alcohol. The other involves driving in any manner that deviates from what the government defines to be “safe” driving. Which is to say, anything that is less than compliant driving. If, for example, a driver makes any sudden or abrupt maneuvers, such as accelerating or braking “aggressively” (the “aggressiveness” defined as anything more than cautious, tepid and entirely within the letter of the law) or “weaving” (i.e., changing lanes quickly so as to get around slowpokes) or not mindlessly staring directly straight ahead (so as to not qualify as “distracted” by the eye movement monitors already built into most new vehicles) then – clearly – it is evidence of “impairment.”
And that will become functionally synonymous with drunk.
This is the sobriety checkpoint that you’ll soon be driving, if you buy a new vehicle in the near future.
The notice of proposed rulemaking, NHTSA says, “initiates (the process) that would gather the information necessary to develop performance requirements and require that new passenger motor vehicles be equipped with advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology through a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS).”
That is a new federal requirement that must be complied with. 
It may not even be necessary to buy a new vehicle to drive a sobriety checkpoint. Most vehicles made over the past five years or so already have most of the elements of the drive-it-with-you sobriety checkpoint. The eye-movement scanners, for instance, that are at the heart of what is marketed as a “drowsy driver” warning system. If you already have a 2025 model year vehicle, you will not have to wait for NHTSA’s “advanced notice of proposed rulemaking” to take effect because it already has. Because most 2025 model year vehicles have those eye-movement scanners. Plus “speed limit assist” and don’t forget the Biden Thing’s parting gift to us, the federal requirement that every vehicle made beginning next year (2026) be equipped with automatic emergency braking.
All of these systems are designed – so they say – to “assist” us. Soon, they will be used to control us. Do you doubt? Then read:
“The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or BIL) directs NHTSA to issue a final rule establishing a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) that requires new passenger vehicles to have ‘advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology‘ by 2024. The BIL also provides that an FMVSS should be issued only if it meets the requirements of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act.”
Italics added. Do you see? 
It will be difficult to object, too – because those who raise a hand to question it will be derided as defending drunk driving. It will be of a piece with the way anyone who raised a question about why the gym was force-closed but Wal Mart was wide open during the “pandemic” was derided as wanting to see grandma dead. Or – earlier – the way anyone who didn’t see how having government goons heft the breasts of women and the family jewels of men at the airport prevented trrrrrrrists from getting onboard airplanes.
Vehicles were once freedom machines. We loved them for just that reason, which transcended their utilitarian virtues as transportation appliances. They are becoming something akin to the ankle bracelets that certain convicts must wear as the condition of being allowed to live outside of a prison that make the world outside an open air prison. The convict has the advantage, though, in that at least he had to do something criminal – and be convicted of having done it – before he had to wear the ankle bracelet.
We – as a people – lost that privilege when we surrendered our right to not have to prove to a cop that we weren’t “drunk” just because we happened to be out driving.
Ideas have consequences. So do precedents.
Voila, here we are. Or soon will be.
. . .
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If they go the breath sensors route I’m gonna call them “blow-start cars”. “Oh hey Jim, so got one of those blow-start cars huh?” I’m not buying new anymore as I’m sure as hell not blow-starting my car!
I remember cops pulling us over and stealing our beer. Pre/jew prison planet
My local carpenter father in law used to drive his old Datsun truck on rural roads with a beer in his hand and my son standing up on the seat (when he was 5 years old). I put a stop to that. He got busted for DUI 3 times and finally quit driving. I grew up running around barefoot and had “luau feet”, which were what tough wide feet were called in Hawaii. I got an old, brown 9 foot Interisland surfboard from my sister’s girlfriend for 20 bucks and was out in the ocean surfing every day from age 11. My parents were just glad I was out of the house. We used to camp on the beach and nobody bothered us. Now you can’t even legally sleep in your car.
Oh, and the “homeless” comprised of a guy they called “Mango Man” who walked Pali Highway from Honolulu to Kaneohe and slept in the mango groves. Him and a very few isolated others. They were called “bums” back then.Now there are huge homeless camps all over Honolulu and all the way down the beaches on the West Side.
What about driving while jabbed or otherwise retarded? Sure I could down a sixpack and out drive most of morons I encounter on the 2 lane mountain road I drive daily.This crap has nothing to do with saaaaafety and everything to do with control and MONEY.
Amen, Zane –
I can keep my vehicle in its lane – in between the painted lines – using my knees to steer better than 8/10 “drivers” I encounter every day.
I remember Eric wrote an article about this very issue a while back. That is, those drivers who have been jabbed, and subsequently, are not all there anymore. It can be a sobering thought to wonder (and just plain speculate while sitting in traffic) how many around you are jabbed, and still think they are doing great.
‘Ideas have consequences. So do precedents.’ — eric
‘Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) called for nuclear weapons to be used against Gaza following Wednesday night’s shooting of two Israeli staffers at the Capitol Jewish Museum in Washington.
‘During a Thursday morning interview on Fox News, Fine insisted that “Palestinianism is built on violence.”
“I mean, we live in a world where the left and the Palestinian cause literally calls for violence against Jews every day,” the Republican lawmaker said. “We need to start to call evil for what it is and not make excuses for it.”
“In World War II, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis. We did not negotiate a surrender with the Japanese,” he explained. “We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender; that needs to be the same here.” — MSN
https://tinyurl.com/bdzv55x7
Extra credit assignment: estimate, from his red, blotchy face in the lede photo, the Congress Clown’s blood alcohol content when he launched this hate-filled, genocidal rant after an all-night legislative session.
“That, of course, was back in the days when Americans who were out for a drive didn’t have to stop at “checkpoints” where they were required to prove they hadn’t been drinking, even when they’d given no reason to suspect they may have been.”
Of course it could be argued that if you live in one of the 38 states that allow this unconstitutional behavior – then you are not a real American. Might want to just admit you’ve been conquered and are a serf.
Or you could choose to live in one of the 12 states that forbid the practice of roadside checkpoints
Just sayin’
During Prohibition, alcohol illegal, there were federales roaming the northern border with Canada because bootleggers were hauling whiskey from Weyburn, Saskatchewan running Canadian blended whiskey into the states.
If you had a big car, the bootleggers would hijack the thing. If you had a big car and suspected of hauling alcoholic beverages, you would be stopped. Roaming checkpoints back then too.
It was a Catch 22, you were between a rock and a hard place back in 1928.
Bottom line, everybody and his mother brother uncle and cousin were imbibing.
Later on, the whiskey distillers moved to Brandon, then to Winnipeg then to Montreal.
Then Seagram’s moved to New York City after the repeal of the 18th Amendment.
Supply and Demand
Alcohol sells.
I’ll drink to that.
Vote Republican and Democrat – harder, for the opportunity
to give totalitarianism a chance.
Can I call this all retarded?
Impaired is a very specific thing, no? How many times do we have to see videos of people at varying levels of intoxication performing at very different levels of proficiency. My BIL is an ex-cop and many years ago we tried to see what it would take to blow a .10 (the level at the time). I was pretty wrecked by the time I got there!
I helped a young lady in the neighborhood with a dead battery caused by the stupid interlock that the state made her put on her car. She said it routinely malfunctioned, drained the battery and left her stranded. The best part? She wasn’t even over the limit, but she was a minor and there is a “zero tolerance”policy.
Again, retarded.
What is to stop someone from simply having a can of air in ones vehicle for such a purpose? You know the kind you use to dust your computer keyboard off with? Keep one in your vehicle, and shove that thing in the breathalyzer, and tell it to go to hell. Whoops, the alcohol in your mouthwash is showing that you are drunk even if you are not…no driving to work for you! Whoops, you posted something politically incorrect last night on-line somewhere, no driving for you! Ugh…what a stupid world…
Hey Shadow,
I hear some people used to keep around balloons for that purpose. In response, the breathalyzer companies made it necessary for you to hum while you blow into the device. Of course, one might try and circumvent that with a recording or a vibrator or something. I’m sure a little electrical circumvention all that is needed, should one have the proper expertise.
But bullshit on it all, anyway. There needs to be a resistance. When asked “You don’t want people to drink and drive, do you?!”, don’t give them the satisfaction of a refutation or fruitless argument. Simply, “I’m done with your reasons and motivations. This shit ends now.” will suffice.
Jumper across the device
Well, at least the “Big, Beautiful Bill” passed the House, and there are provisions therein to remove such onerous vehicular requirements and reign in the NHTSA and similar agencies.
Oh wait. That isn’t the case?
It’s just your typical wanton spending bill that adds to the Fed’s debt tally and keeps us as a feedstock to well-connected parties? Inconceivable!
But look, you may no longer have to pay $200 “taxes” on your so-called NFA firearms accessories! Of course, you still must ask your feudal lords “Mother, may I?” all the way up the chain. What about repealing the NFA or abolishing the ATF or any of the other alphabet soup abominations? Nope?
Well, it appears what we have here is a “Big, Beautiful”, metastasizing, tyrannical cancer, and it won’t be stopped until it is excised and the immune system vigorously suppresses any new formations.
But the surgeon works for the cancer, and the immune system is dead.
You can be convicted of drunk driving by merely being inside the vehicle not moving. In other words, if you decided to *sleep it off* and not drive, the AGW’s have probable cause you were driving hence you are guilty. Does this new technology now trump the assumption of guilt since it prevents you from driving…I’ll bet the answer will be *no* until some unlucky person has to take this to the Supreme Court which is a crap shoot with Amy and John.
It’s almost unfathomable at this point that back in the 70’s? you wern’t automatically a murderer for having a drink and driving home.
At least it’s still considered entrapment for an officer to follow a vehicle out of the bar parking lot and down the road and bust said customer.
Either a lot of the bartenders are murderers too, or this is all just kabuki.
Could it be that the car companies give zero fucks about selling cars, and if they could make the same money selling ankle braclets too, they would?
“Screw your freedom!” -The Nazi representative from California is recognized.
The story is a bar patron at a bar in Minnesota exited the bar, found his car, fumbled for his keys for a few minutes, got into his car, drove off, while a law enforcement officer was observing the drunken fool leaving the bar.
As the driver of the suspect vehicle drove from the parking lot, the officer followed, stopped him for a potential DUI. Turned out, the driver was completely sober.
All the while, all of the other drunk drinking drunks left for home.
Anyhow, that is a good story, and funny.
Ah, yes, the “designated decoy” maneuver. Heard of it, never seen it used.
Different definition for “wingman”.
It’s another gov bureaucratic debacle that is 180 off from actually dealing with drunk/high drivers. None of this deals with habitual offenders. .08, .05 only end up harassing the public. Here in WA it’s now potheads combined with booze.
They finally kill someone after many priors, gee now we’ll lock them up for a couple years. I’ve related this before, neighbors niece killed by a hit and run – caught quickly and was DUI. This was the third DUI, got less than 4 years for killing an innocent.
Near where I live a motorcycle rider killed on the freeway, got rear ended by a POS high on pot plus booze.
There is no way some “device” will stop them. There are always work arounds.
Luckily or unluckily as the economy goes down hill; no one will be buying much of anything new and will keep on driving what they already own. If they ban older cars there will be an uproar and hopefully real changes will happen then for the better.
Funny thing is that mechanics are already having major problems trying to keep new cars running; just wait until they add even more technology to the mix. Luckily hackers will fix these problems.
I don’t remember growing up in a police state so why does it feel like I’m living in one now?
Speaking of hackers that were supposed to fight the police state, whatever happened to those Anonymous troublemakers?
For a time, those guys were looking to cause all sorts of chaos and disrupt state mandated nonsense.
Probably was just a Langley op.
I don’t know Flip. Perhaps they were just another part of that whole “QAnon” thing.
Once the hackers get involved things will get interesting.
You can tune it however you want & have a “test mode” where it tells the scanner everything is A-OK.
In my state as long as the scanner reads no codes & the gas cap is intact, you’re good to go — and in most areas no smog check is needed.
(Much like a voting machine)
Prove you aren’t a tyrant.
The early part of your piece got me thinking. The political left all of a sudden became worried about “due process” when it came to the Trump 2.0 administration deporting people in the U.S. illegally, but they weren’t worried about “due process” at all when the Biden regime was throwing J6 protesters in jail, many of those protesters in jails with conditions that you’d have seen in 3rd world countries. Instead, many on the intellectually & morally bankrupt political left CHEERED. As for new cars being required to test if someone has been drinking alcohol prior to driving, couldn’t one potentially make the case that a driver’s “due process” is being violated by TECHNOLOGY?
[As for new cars being required to test if someone has been drinking alcohol prior to driving, couldn’t one potentially make the case that a driver’s “due process” is being violated by TECHNOLOGY?]
Yeah,,, like their gonna listen to us.
Indeed John,
There is nothing “Constitutional” about a checkpoint, or asset forfeiture for that matter. They are therefore illegal. Which is no longer of any consequence to the State.
As we were leaving WA State, cities and counties started passing “distracted” driving ordinances which gave the heroes discretion about issuing citations to drivers for activity such as eating and/or drinking (not alcohol) behind the wheel while the vehicle was in motion.
Ostensibly, the ordinances were about saaaafety, but the jurisdictions which passed them often had large employers within their boundaries along with high sales taxes which put their fast food and convenience stores at a disadvantage among commuters who would stop for their coffee, water, and snacks elsewhere before heading to the office/factory/warehouse.
Roscoe, we’re contemplating leaving WA, are you pleased with your move if so I’d appreciate knowing where you settled in, state? Thanks –
We moved to Austin from Vancouver, WA in 2014.
I suggest looking elsewhere if you want a forever home as your destination.
Texas does not have income tax, but the Legislature is using state surplus money to hide significant property tax increases inside “reform” initiatives ince the 2023 session.
If all that driver assistance stuff actually worked why not ease up on drunk driving then? It’s OK officer, the car is keeping me in my lane and maintaining the PSL!
Hey ReadyK,
That was some impetus for the “autonomous vehicle”, but theoretically the “passenger” was always supposed to be be ready to control the vehicle should there be a malfunction, and thus he or she couldn’t be intoxicated.
Not sure where that has gone, honestly, as there are driverless taxi services in operation, and you never had to be sober to get in a taxi.
From the NHTSA’s Rulemaking Status Report on Advanced Impaired Driving Technology in December 2024:
A. Reasons for Not Prescribing an Advanced Drunk and Impaired Driving FMVSS
Alcohol-Detection System Readiness
NHTSA is continuing to review technology for the ability and potential to detect driver impairment.
While significant advances have been made in drunk and impaired driver detection, alcohol impairment detection systems have not yet been implemented on production vehicles offered for sale to the public that would meet the requirements set forth in BIL as well as the Safety Act.
While camera-based driver monitoring systems are becoming more prevalent in the
vehicle fleet, few are used to detect driver visual distraction and/or drowsiness outside of
the use of partial driving automation.
NHTSA research found the approaches furthest along in the development process are those measuring the presence and amount of alcohol in a person’s body using BrAC and tissue spectroscopy. With regard to other approaches, camera-based DMS for alcohol-based impairment detection are still in research and development, and the efficacy of vehicle kinematic measures in identifying alcohol-based impairment is currently unknown.
D. Anticipated Timeline for FMVSS
[no date provided]
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2024-12/report-to-congress-2024-advanced-impaired-driving-prevention-technology.pdf
In response to NHTSA’s status report, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) issued a press release on December 19, 2024. Headline: We are ‘deeply disappointed’ by NHTSA’s inadequate progress and lack of timeline for anti-drunk driving technology regulation
Bottom line: impaired driving technology is not ready. NHTSA has no idea when it will be ready.
What comes next: another NHTSA status report in December 2025, offering the latest ‘Reasons for NOT prescribing an Advanced Drunk and Impaired Driving FMVSS.’
It ain’t happening.
Hi Jim,
I don’t think that Fedgov gives a sh*t whether it’s ready or not, they’ll just roll it out anyway to remind us who’s in charge.
Hey! We have a winner here!
It’s so easy to test for…
https://youtu.be/2PLC_cBJwk4?si=ZcqDXzfh-AUePJcE
The Motor Trend article cited in the undated msn.com article is from Dec 14, 2023:
https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-anti-drunk-driving-tech-rules-coming
So, likewise, is the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking cited in the article:
‘The Acting Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Ann Carlson, signed the following Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) on December 12, 2023.’
It’s bizarre that msn.com publishes undated articles. But then, we’re dealing with untrained Lügenpresse stenographers at MSN.
Bottom line, thankfully, is that this is all old news.
Alcohol detection sensors don’t work. They produce too many false positives. They aren’t coming in 2026 MY vehicles, or the year after that, or the year after that either.
It’s all bullshit. And you can take that to the bank.
Hi Jim,
I disagree. Because I experience the parts of this system already embedded in new vehicles. Wait for the video I’ll post later today or tomorrow from behind the wheel of the just-redone Infiniti QX80 I’m driving right now.