HOTCARS Are Coming

A beast is slouching out of Bethlehem – disguised in swaddling clothes.

Several Israeli companies with ties to the Israeli national security apparat are developing technologies to monitor people inside their own cars.

Ostensibly infant people – ostensibly to prevent them being left inside parked cars to roast to death – a problem created, ironically enough, by forcing parents to put their kids somewhere in the back of the car where they are more easily forgotten.

But the tech to solve this manufactured problem could also be used for “other forms of driver ( i.e., adult) and occupant monitoring,” as explained hint hint-style to Automotive News by Raviv Melamed of the Israeli firm Vayar Imaging.

For example, to ascertain whether an adult driver is buckled up for saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety. Or smoking in a car that might be used to transport kids. Or allowed – contrary to law – his 11-year-old kid to ride up front instead of “properly secured” in a booster seat in back. Even if just for a quick ride down to the mailbox at the end of the driveway

Eating. Gesturing.

Almost anything that involves movement down to a heartbeat could be monitored.

And not just could be.

Probably will be.

A mandate for this technology is percolating in Washington, courtesy of Reps. Peter King of New York and Jan Schakowsly of Illinois.    

The Helping Overcome Trauma for Children Alone in Rear Seats Act (and what sort of awful person could oppose overcoming trauma for children left alone in rear seats?) will, if it becomes law, require that all new cars be fitted with monitoring technology that can “detect a child left alone in a car and alert the owner and/or emergency services.”

Whether you happen to have kids who might be left alone in the car being of no consequence. Everyone will be forced to buy this technology, if they buy a new car.

Which fact shows that this is not about kids – ostensibly or otherwise.

The same technology used to “detect” the movements of a child can just as readily detect the movements – and actions – of an adult. This may even reduce to actions such as frowning when a report about “climate change” issues from the car’s Telescreen/LCD display.

And when Unapproved Actions are detected, the system could  just as readily be used to “alert emergency services”  . . . i.e., sic armed government workers on the adult offender as to rescue the forgotten, slow-cooking kid.

The car could be sent instructions to pull over and wait for the Hut! Hut! Hutting! by the AGWs . . . windows up, doors locked and – presumably – the AC on.

Or perhaps a simple automatic deduction from the offender’s checking account, mandatorily paired with the technology?

We saw a prequel of our Now or soon-to-be in 1993’s Demolition Man.

“Everybody is looking at this,” Vayar Imagining’s Melamed exulted to AN. Of course. They’d be idiotic not to, given the times. There is money to be made – via the mandate – and control to be had. A double win for the corporate-government nexus.

But what about us?

Ask an over-the-road trucker.

They’ve been under surveillance for years – including real-time telemetry transmits about their driving patterns (“aggressive” braking and acceleration inputs or no-nos). Cameras watch them; microphones listen to them.

Fines are issued to them. Every control inside the truck is under the control of someone outside the truck – which can even be turned off remotely/automatically if the driver attempts to exceed his allowed hours.

But the consolation – such as it is – has been that the trucks are generally owned by the trucking company and the driver is an employee of the trucking company whenever he is in their truck. It’s still vile but not too far removed from the cameras and so on which exist at most cube farms.

The difference — if the insipidly named but creepily serious HOTCARS act becomes law  – is that you’ll never leave the cube farm.

At least, not until you get home.

Which will also probably soon be subject to monitoring – For Your Safety and The Children as well as The Earth – via the “Internet of Things.” Your smart TV already has cameras and microphones; Alexa is listening. So is your phone, probably. Your next toaster will emit “data” about your breakfasting habits. Your ‘fridge will sell you out to the health insurance mafia. Too much fatty meat in there.

It is coming.

Even if the HOTCARS act does not become law, a de facto law has already been passed by the European New Car Assessment program (NCAP) which is the European analog of the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Both evaluate new cars and issue “star” rankings for saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety – which is defined less and less by how well a given vehicle protects its occupants in a crash but rather by how much “safety” technology it has aboard.

“Safety” being defined increasingly in terms of monitoring and controlling the car. Which is to say, monitoring and controlling the driver.

Everything under the eye – and fist – of Sauron.

Toward that end, NCAP recently announced that it will base the numbers of “stars” it awards on the presence – or absence – of “child presence detection” technology, beginning with the 2022 model year.

This will put huge PC pressure on every car manufacturer that sells cars in Europe – which is pretty much every car manufacturer – to install the technology generally, whether the HOTCARS act makes it through the legislative colon or not. Because no car maker is going to go to the trouble of installing this expensive technology in only European-market cars.

And no car company wants to be seen as not on the cutting edge of . . . saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety.

Also – more cynically – because the car companies are becoming just as hungry for money and power as the government.. Increasingly, we don’t buy cars. We sell ourselves to the car companies, who allow us to use their cars – under their terms and conditions.

We pay them to control us – and then they mine us.

All of this ostensibly because a handful of parents “forgot” their tots in the backseat of a car and left them to slow-cook until tender.

If  they’d been riding up front – next to mom or dad, as kids used to – they’d probably not have been forgotten (or cooked) in the first place.

And our cars might still be ours – and under our control.

. . .

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