#NannyState

The U.S. Senate is currently considering a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that’s primarily targeting the ailing highway system, with tens of billions left over to spend on advancing the nation’s EV charging infrastructure and incorporating more eco-friendly modes of public transportation. But there’s also some really kooky shit that you need to be made aware of before this passes into law.

Along with new regulations that would mandate the inclusion of collision detection systems and automatic emergency braking, where the car calls your bluff and applies the wheel-stoppers independently of your actions, provisions have been made that would also require some kind of in-car breathalyzer. The stated aim is to reduce incidents of drunk driving. However, the proposed system may also include driver-monitoring cameras, totally undermining any nobility the cause might otherwise have had.

It’s Monday, so let’s start it off by ignoring the demands of your cruel overseers in The Man’s salt mines and turning to a subject that’s sure to get all automotive enthusiasts riled up: Ralph Nader!

My refusal to convict Oldsmobile driver Rod Kinkade on the testimony of a cycling team had the bike riders of TTAC howling for my blood. They won’t get it; I paid for eleven units of the finest junkie-and-derelict blood the last time I was struck by a motorist. It took three long, expensive days of ICU residence to get all that blood into me while they were Hemovacing the bad stuff out of a two-inch-diameter hole in my right leg. No soup for you, roadies.