During consideration Thursday of the Consolidated Appropriations Act (HR 7148), United States House of Representatives members rejected by a vote of 268 to 164 an amendment offered by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), along with cosponsors Reps. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Chip Roy (R-TX). The amendment would eliminate funding to implement a mandate included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (HR 3684) that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2021. That mandate requires vehicles to be manufactured so they include a “kill switch” that empowers government to remotely disable the vehicles if surveillance technology the mandate also requires to be included in the vehicles indicates there has been “impaired” driving.
The “kill switch” mandate, Massie says at the beginning of his speech that started off the House floor debate over the amendment, “will probably sound like a bad science fiction movie.” However, it is reality. Bureaucrats at the Department of Transportation have been working on the regulations to implement the mandate.
Here is the future Massie explains the mandate promises:
The car itself will monitor your driving. And, if the car thinks that you’re not doing a good job driving, it will disable itself. So, the car dashboard becomes your judge, your jury, and your executioner.
Massie proceeded in his speech to provide an example of how this mandate may operate in practice:
Imagine this. We’ve got a snowstorm coming. A mom takes here kids out. They’re going to the grocery store. It’s snowing. They’re trying to get some groceries before the big storm hits. She swerves for a pothole. The neighbor’s pet gets in the way. She swerves for that. A first responder goes by. She pulls over. Her car says, ‘you’ve got one more swerve and then we’re gonna ground you.’ There it is, the next thing she has to avoid — an icy patch in the road. The car has adjudicated her as unsuitable for driving. It disables the vehicle, and there she’s stranded.
Watch Massie’s speech here:
Massie is an advisory board member for the Ron Paul Institute.
