RGF provides public comment against Biden (and Ben Ray Lujan’s) proposed vehicle “kill switch”

The Biden Administration (with the support of people like NM Sen. Ben Ray Lujan) has been pushing for a “kill switch” controlled by government to be included on your automobile. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) offered an amendment in Congress to eliminate the “kill switch” but it wasn’t adopted.

So, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently collected public comments on the issue. The Rio Grande Foundation offered the following comments in opposition:

I have serious concerns about the proposed regulation:

For starters, whatever technology is ultimately settled on, 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 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. This is not safe, especially in high crime or isolated areas of my state New Mexico (and other rural areas)
.
Personal privacy is at risk: 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.”

For all of these and other reasons, we oppose this proposal.

You can find this comment at Regulation.gov by searching for: lte-wiud-nr78