Representative Jerry F. Costello

I read a letter that Representative Jerry F. Costello, who is a Democrat from Illinois, wrote regarding the ROADS SAFE Act and his opposition. I thought that it would be very interesting to read an opinion of someone who was opposed to the act in order to get the other perspective. Costello raised some very good points on why the ROADS SAFE Act is not a good idea, and I think that there are definitely things that would need to be thought of before this t4echnology was created. The first thing that he mentioned was false positives. There are many medications, mouthwashes, and toothpastes that contain a large amount of alcohol in them. If the system were to detect this alcohol, the car would not start, even though the driver wasn’t drunk. Next, the idea of a device malfunction was introduced. Like any other electronic equipment, it is very likely that the technology would fail. What would happen in a life or death situation when the car couldn’t be started due to an error? Or what if the car was already started and then it malfunctioned and turned the car off? This could create potential dangers that could result in major accidents or fatalities. The last thing that I thought was definitely something that would be important to consider is the price. Currently, our economy is suffering and prices of cars are increasing, but would this technology cause an even greater increase? All of these things would need to be addressed and resolved before these devices could go into production.