AI controlled vehicle kill switches appear to be coming to new vehicles later this year

Every so often a law that was passed years ago quietly becomes a present-day compliance reality. Section 24220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is one of those laws. Tucked into an eleven-hundred-page infrastructure bill with little public debate, the “kill switch law” as it has come to be known by some, awaits implementing regulations. The law has triggered debates in Congress seeking to defund the law, as well as lots of hand wringing around privacy and data governance questions that businesses, fleet operators, and their legal counsel are trying to answer before the technology becomes standard equipment in new vehicles.

What the Law Actually Requires

Section 24220 directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require that all new passenger vehicles be equipped with what the statute calls “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology.” In practical terms, the law contemplates two types of systems:

A passive performance-monitoring system that continuously observes a driver’s behavior and restricts or prevents vehicle operation if the system determines the driver may be impaired;
or
A blood-alcohol detection system that prevents or limits operation when BAC meets or exceeds the legal limit of 0.08%.

LINK