Federal safety authorities Tuesday called for all U.S. cars, trucks and buses to come equipped with technology that would allow them to "talk" to one another to help avoid accidents.Right. And since your car would be broadcasting its speed, location, direction of travel, whether or not its wipers and/or headlights were on, you'd have no expectation of privacy in any of that information.
Which means that government(s) would be free to collect it.
Which means that corporations would collect it to sell you targeted ads.
Maybe you're on a strict diet for medical reasons, so now your car would rat you out for stopping at the local Retch `n Run for a cheeseburger, fries and a shake. Maybe your insurance company will adjust your rates because you use your brakes too much (one already does this).
Here's my reaction: No. Fucking. Way. I'll happily pour repair money into used (non-wireless) cars. I already carry one government spying device with me most of the time, I don't need one in my car.
I don't know the NTSB lunatics who came up with this idea, but they should be forced to read the 4th Amendment aloud and then flogged on the Washington Mall with an old set of tire chains.
11 comments:
It sure will be embarrassing when taking your date out, to be driving down an empty road only to see every billboard change over to amputee-dwarf-Disney-Princess-cosplay pr0n.
Or hemorrhoid cream. Or whatever.
Those tire chains should be old and rusty!
However if you don't have a tracker or a car that is chatty I'm sure some regulation will mandate it even for your '53 merc. Or instead the insurance companies will or your rates will go from nose dragger rates to those typical of an experimental tail dragger low time pilot.
Remember the words for the 21st centery are... more, More, MORE!
Eck1
Point of order, Miss Fit. NTSB is blameless here; cars are in the purview of NHTSA.
FVH
I'm sure the cops will be all for this. Why bother making a speed trap when they can ask the car for its maximum speed in the last X seconds.
-Terrant
I saw this coming twenty years ago when I was fresh out of the FORD two year college program.
This is not new technology by any means and yes, it is very easy for a cop to be able to plug a scan tool in to your communication port and download every parameter of data on your speed right now.
I worked on new cars for ten years and hate computerised cars with a burning passion.
The newest vehicle I drive is thirty years old.
Even the department of motor vehicles lists it as a classic and in a couple of years I will be able to buy collector vehicle plates for it and never have to buy tags again.
As for driving and maintaining an older vehicle, as long as parts are available, do a cost benefit study.
The amount of money you spend every month on a new car versus that same amount going towards restoring a classic steel bumpered car that has stopped depreciating.
By the time you would have paid off that new car the value of it would have dropped by half and at the same time, the value of the classic would have at least doubled.
Double bonus points, you now have a bitchin' cool car.
Why more people haven't figured this out is beyond me other than they have been trained like Pavlov's dog that they have to have the newest car available.
Idiots.
Busted, around parts I've lived before, really old cars are rare. Road salt kills them. First time I visited SoCal, I was amazed at all of the ancient beasts on their roads.
Might ask my brother to see if he can find a decent `85 Accord and then go get it.....
Busted, stop worrying about what the cops can plug into a new car. New microchip-equipped license plates will take care of the problem eventually, even if you're driving a Ford Model T.
For that matter, in another 20 years, Anthony Weiner won't have to make photographs of what's in his underpants to send to strange women. It'll be on file after any trip to the airport.
I'd say you could run away to a lonely atoll in the Pacific, but they'll know where you are and they'll come to get you.
Very crankily yours,
The New York Crank
I wonder how long one of those license plates would survive a ride in my microwave oven...
Think your microwave would survive nuking a metal license plate?
Killing the chip is easy if you know where it is. Maybe the plate, or under the bumper, inside the fender well.
Or maybe like the inspection sticker it will be required and visible.
Eck!
Frank, the recommendation is coming from the NTSB, no?
Post a Comment