‘Kill Switch’ Drunk Driving Prevention Technology Raises Concerns for Grassroots Activists

‘Kill Switch’ Drunk Driving Prevention Technology Raises Concerns for Grassroots Activists

The Texan

Kim Roberts | June 29th, 2026

Grassroots activists in Texas are expressing concern about “kill switch” technology for automobiles that was mandated in 2021 under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) passed during the Biden administration.

The secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation was to prescribe federal motor vehicle safety standards for “advanced drunk impaired driving prevention technology,” also known as the kill switch, no later than three years after the enactment of the IIJA. It also provided for a time extension.

The kill switch is supposed to “passively monitor” the driver’s performance or blood alcohol concentration and “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation” if impairment is detected.

Nearly 200 activists, led by Texans Uniting for Reform & Freedom (TURF) founder and Director Terri Hall and Grassroots America: We the People PAC Executive Director JoAnn Fleming, sent a letter to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in May asking him to use his position to repeal the kill switch mandate. They also held up signs at the Republican Convention of Texas state convention earlier this month asking Cruz to “Stop the Kill Switch.”

In the letter, the activists expressed concerns that the monitoring technology, which could become a regular feature on newly manufactured cars, would constitute an unconstitutional invasion that could effectively “convict a driver in real-time of a criminal act completely outside the protective framework of a court of law in a trial by a jury.”

The letter also notes that a kill switch could leave disabled vehicles littered on roadways, causing traffic incidents and safety concerns.

“Whether the system uses cameras, eye-tracking, biometrics, or driving pattern analysis, it is continuously collecting sensitive behavioral and physiological data about the driver,” Joseph Lazzarotti, an attorney who specializes in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence issues, wrote in an article about potential privacy concerns with the technology. 

“It is generated, stored — somewhere — and potentially transmitted. To whom? Under what retention schedule? With what security controls? The statute is silent. [The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA)] rules are not yet final. The answers will depend heavily on what manufacturers build and what their privacy policies and terms of service say.”

The article also raised concerns that the kill switch technology could be vulnerable to a fleetwide cyberattack with mass casualty implications.

Cruz is the chair of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which will help draft the highway funding bill that is likely to come before the Senate in September. 

Hall told The Texan that the activists are urging Cruz to repeal the kill switch in the highway funding bill or as a freestanding bill.

Cruz’s office did not provide a statement in response to The Texan’s inquiry about the letter or any plans he may have to address the kill switch.

The NHTSA issued a report in February 2026 to Congress about the rulemaking for a kill switch standard, saying that the technology is not ready for implementation.

“[D]etection technology around the legal limit continues to have an error rate that would be unacceptably high,” the NHTSA report stated.

“At this time, NHTSA is not aware of any technology that claims to achieve anywhere close to this level of accuracy in minimizing false positives (misclassifying a sober driver as impaired) and false negatives (failing to detect an impaired driver), and no such capabilities have been verified independently to date,” it added.

Even though NHTSA says the technology is not ready for implementation, Hall is still concerned that it could be implemented if the provision from IIJA is not repealed.

“So literally, the only thing stopping it for now is the technology isn’t there yet. However, once it is, we can conclude that that means it is going in the cars,” Hall said. 

“NHTSA doesn’t take a position that it is unsafe, nor does it recommend the technology be repealed by Congress. Until that’s what their report says, I don’t think we can breathe easy,” she added.

Congressman Michael Cloud (R-TX-27) successfully offered an amendment with two other representatives to the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 during a House Appropriations Committee meeting in early June.

About the amendment, Cloud told The Texan, “Solving real problems should not come at the cost of creating new ones. Placing monitoring equipment in every vehicle and collecting data on every American driver is not a safety measure. It hands other third parties a backdoor into the daily lives of law-abiding citizens who never consented to being watched. The Constitution does not bend just because the technology exists to make surveillance more convenient.”

The amendment would prohibit the use of FY 2027 appropriated funds to implement the impaired driving technology mandate.

The U.S. House has not yet taken up the appropriations bill.

Hall praised Cloud’s amendment as a “step in the right direction,” but she is still hoping for a bill that will repeal the mandate altogether.