A 1967 current-affairs segment interviews habitual drunk drivers just before the UK introduced the breathalyser. They insist they drive fine after drinking.
Why Hacker News points people here: Used as a historical analogy for public resistance to new safety rules, and as an amusing vox pop.
“Here's one vox pop with the introduction of breathalizers in UK (1967)”HN comment, 2025
“When drunk driving was made illegal, people were furious and insisted they were fine to drive drunk”
Historic pushback against drunk driving laws as analogy
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> The point is your opinion is concordant with every other poster in this thread, aka hivemind By this logic isn't everyone who is pro-touchscreens also a hivemind? > Nobody is asking whether some people are fine with touchscreens in cars and why that might be the case. Many people are demonstrably bad drivers who are over-confident in their ability and down-play the risk of distractions. When drunk driving was made illegal, people were furious and insisted they were fine to drive drunk and that it was perfectly safe: this video Touchscreens, while convenient and extensible, are demonstrably inferior to static physical controls for saftey-critical contexts.
Cites itLevitzMar 2023
“As an amusing tidbit: a reporter asking people about making drunk driving illegal”
Amusing reporter interview before drunk driving became illegal
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The rise of the automobile did cause a whole lot of legal and social ramifications that ought to be a good warning. Drunk driving was legal for years, I think it's a good thing to be wary of how things can change and to be ready, as a society, to deal with unintended consequences of this new technology, even if we assume it to be a worthwhile net good. As an amusing tidbit: a reporter asking people about making drunk driving illegal, a little before that came to be a reality: this video
Cites itSevreneDec 2025
“Here's one vox pop with the introduction of breathalizers in UK (1967)”
Vox pop on 1967 UK breathalyzer introduction
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>I feel like you haven't really been listening to the arguments against these types of age-verification-for-websites laws. Or maybe I just have a different conclusion to you? Because I do care, I do try to listen to the arguments. I'm no stranger to advocacy for civil liberties, they are important to me. I think all else being equal, freedom should be valued more over harm prevention. So if I'm for these laws, consider that a sign of how bad these sites have become, not how uninformed I am. > I mean, there's some similarities, of course. But I think there are some very stark differences. Yep of course it's not a 1:1, I agree. I don't mean to imply that people saying the same arguments today are wrong simply because people in the past were, but it does make me think more about it when I spot the same rhetoric. Often both sides have very reasonable concerns, as an example, the question isn't "should we have all or no freedom" Either extreme creates issues, yet both sides have valid arguments worth our time considering. We settle somewhere in the middle. Here's one vox pop with the introduction of breathalizers in UK (1967): this video
