Woman Distracted by Texting Drives Her Car Into a Lake

[Glassunion]

138. I am not dodging the question

I would feel like shit. However, I will say it again: I would rather they not end up in the water in the first place.

I will also say it again: being drunk is not a mitigating factor. Mitigating means to lessen or make less severe. A mitigating factor is a term in law that basically is used to lessen a charge. It's like saying "Yes your Honor, he did run over that pedestrian and kill them. However he was drunk at the time, so we are asking for a reduced charge from manslaughter to failure to yield."

$120 in every new vehicle will cost overall $660 million.

I feel that if it is a genuine concern of the operator of the motor vehicle that they should have something installed. If we required that every manufacturer provide a solution to every little thing that comes along, no one would make anything. There is an inherent risk of death every single time you operate a motor vehicle.

Now there have been advancements in safety, and these things do save lives. But they are all quantitative:
Airbags save 1 in 16 crash victims a year from death.
Seat belts save 1 in 2 crash victims a year from death.

Your solution may save 1 in 500,000.

We have an issue in the US. We justifiably so hold car manufacturers accountable for safety, fuel consumption and emissions of the vehicles they produce. But every year we add more an more weight to their vehicles by requiring them to have more and more safety equipment, along with emissions equipment, on top of demanding so many miles per gallon. Every little thing we add to a vehicle adds weight. You add weight, you reduce mileage and increase emissions.

If that window override device installed on all windows in a car weighed a total of 25lbs, you would require that all new cars burn an additional 15.568million gallons of gas per year if the only new car available was a Prius.

We need to be very careful about what we require all new cars have.