A bill has been filed in the Texas House of Representatives to ban remote kill switches from being installed in vehicles.
The bill was authored by Rep. Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) and filed on December 19. It is backed by Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF) and Texans for Toll-free Highways (TTH).
A press release from TURF says that the recent Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed by President Biden mandates that all vehicles manufactured after 2026 must have a “kill switch” installed.
A “kill switch” is a device installed inside a vehicle that prevents it from starting. The press release claims a kill switch can be activated by anyone who gains control of it, including the government.
“After the COVID lockdowns, there can be no question about how far the government will go to exercise power over the citizens’ freedom of movement,” argued Terri Hall, founder of both TURF and TTH.
Hall continued, “With the push to end fossil fuels and mandate electric vehicles, the rise of government tracking of carbon emissions under the Biden administration … and the pilot federal mileage tax, the government is closing in on forms of a social scoring system that can be weaponized against drivers anytime the government determines you’re using too much carbon or otherwise deemed uncooperative with its edicts.”
“Texas has to stand its ground and say ‘No’ to such surveillance state tactics,” Hall concluded. “We intend to keep the Lone Star State free of such overreach.”
Levi Russell, professor of applied economics at the University of Kansas’ Brandmeyer Center, wrote in May on the potentially far-reaching implications of this technology.
“These corporations can sell you a product for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars then prevent you from using them,” Russell suggested. “Worse yet, if the law is not challenged or repealed, these kill switches will have a ‘back door’ that allows government agencies to shut your vehicle off remotely as well.”
While TURF and TTH allege the recent legislation mandates “kill switches” be installed, AP News reports that the provision in question is aimed towards preventing drunk driving deaths.
The provision requires all new vehicles to include “advanced drunk driving and impaired driving prevention technology” as “standard equipment.”
For his part, Jeffrey Michael, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Injury Research and Policy, asserted that this technology does not give government agencies control over vehicles.
“I’ve been associated with this technology since the beginning of its development and it has always been viewed as a prevention device rather than an enforcement device,” he said, adding that he believes the new law has “nothing to do with giving law enforcement access to a kill switch.”
Many vehicles in the United States already operate with kill switches — most of which are installed to prevent thieves from being able to start the vehicle.
Just another way for the government to keep track of everything you do- this NEEDS to be defeated!
Let’s get away from the swamp…..Think TEXIT!
I support Texit! The boarder wall should be erected around our Eastern, Western and Northern borders. As Texas was originally a part of Mexico, our Southern borders continue to supply us with our rich cultural heritage that makes us distinctly TEJAS. ✊🏽#Texit🇨🇱
Actually we would have to annex Louisiana to keep a good eye on infiltration from the Eastern borders.
Yeah no freaking way do I want the government to control my car.. Geez that’s just insane
The government that wants to put a kill switch in your vehicle will want to put a kill switch in you. Oh wait – they already have – they call it a “vaccine.”
I’ve NEVER seen so many STUPID white people ,afraid that someone is watching them,maybe it’s because you’ve STOLEN EVERYTHING ON THE PLANET,of course.
Kill Switches are to prevent vehicles from being stolen…FOOLS.
Could be that maybe you should learn to read before calling others fools?
“ AP News reports that the provision in question is aimed towards preventing drunk driving deaths.“.
And so it begins…. Just for the record Jeffrey Michael, just because you “don’t believe” the government will have access to the kill switch doesn’t mean they won’t. If the government is taking the time to mandate kill switches, you’d better believe they will have control over them.
Using “preventing drunk driving” as an excuse to punish the entire population for the misdeeds of relatively few misbehaving doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Consider that 10,000+-people a year from drunk driving, the number of Fentanyl deaths alone dwarfs that number at 50000+- a yr now. If you consider the number of annual total number of drug overdose deaths of 100,000+-/yr, it kind of puts things in perspective and makes the whole “doing it to prevent drunk driving” kind of baseless, especially when you consider that the drug overdoses are at least 99% attributable to Liden’s lax border policy.
Kind of sounds like the “kill switch” is equivalent to someone urinating on your back and telling you it’s raining.
I don’t see exactly how I should be required to absorb the cost for Liden’s kill switch in the hopes it will prevent me from driving drunk, when I don’t even drink? I also can’t be too enthusiastic about the additional expense I’d be required to pay for an already exorbitant vehicle price, for a switch that can be activated remotely, especially given that the fact it can be activated remotely means that it can be hacked remotely, as it’s common knowledge that ANYTHING that can be accessed, can be hacked, if the determination, time, and resource is dedicated to hacking it. Once it’s exploited, I really would prefer NOT having a vehicle I’m driving, get shutdown at highway speeds, with my loved ones in the vehicle with me, no brakes, steering, barreling down the road headed for who knows what. I think the information revealed with Snowden makes it very clear that the government assures that there is a back door built into anything computerized anymore.
With entities like Amazon and countries like China flooding the American market with Iot and other devices capable of forming mesh networks, it’s almost impossible to escape the government control as it is. Don’t believe me? Read a few articles about Bryan Kohberger and how they caught him then understand the “mesh environment” that’s already in place allowed law enforcement to literally track the movements of a random individual via GPS AND VIDEO to the extent they could create a timeline down to almost every minute of his life for a month-long period on a whim.
Now think about how much more detailed that very same timeline will be when the government mandates manufacturers to install remote access to everyone’s transportation.
Wait rill biden’s money token goes into effect. You will now have given power to the GOVT to totally control your use and spending. How many more freedoms will be s ached by the money grubbers in DC? Soon you will lose most if not all the freedoms the Constitution once granted the citizens.