WASHINGTON — Two New Jersey congressmen voted to block an overdue federal rule that would require new cars come with tools to detect and stop an intoxicated driver from operating the vehicle.
During debate on legislation to fund the U.S. government, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd) and Chris Smith (R-4th) voted for an amendment, filed by Kentucky lawmaker Thomas Massie, a Republican with a libertarian streak, to block the pending rule.
New Jersey’s Democrats in the House voted down the amendment, as did Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th). Overall, the chamber voted 164-268 against the amendment. Massie was trying to alter legislation to keep federal agencies and programs running — an ongoing legislative fight that centers on funding for the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration and deportation efforts.
Massie criticized the “kill switch” rule as a threat to civil liberties and privacy. “This technology that is in the law is not going to fix the drunk driving problem.”
“We can’t have drunk drivers on the road,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th) said during floor debate about the amendment. “It is not just them but everyone else who is killed and injured as a result of those drunk drivers.”
Through a 2021 infrastructure law, Congress mandated that the Department of Transportation finalize a rule to make “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” the industry standard in new vehicles.
Every member of Congress from New Jersey voted for that law, which included funding for the now-stalled Gateway Program, the bridge-and-tunnel project linking New Jersey and New York.
Spokespeople for Van Drew and Smith did not respond to requests for comment about their votes.
More than 39,000 people died in 2024 in traffic crashes in the U.S., according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a 3.8% decrease from the prior year, when 40,901 people were killed and the first time car-related fatalities dropped below 40,000 since 2020.
Five-hundred-seventy-six people were killed in traffic crashes in New Jersey in 2025, according to state police, down roughly 15% from the previous year, when the death toll was 684.
Studying data from 2015 to 2018, researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that 9,409 fatalities a year, or 25% of all crash deaths, could have been avoided if drivers with blood alcohol levels of 0.08% or higher were held off the roadways.
At that threshold, the risk of fatalities increases sharply, according to IIHS.
In January 2024, the Department of Transportation opened the process of drafting the rule Congress had demanded when it wrote and passed its infrastructure law three years before. Under the law, manufacturers would have two more years — until 2026 — to implement the rule.
The rule-making process is still pending though, a NHTSA spokesperson said.
“NHTSA is committed to reducing impaired driving fatalities using every tool at our disposal,” the agency said in an emailed statement, listing methods including “reengaging with the law enforcement and justice system communities to increase DUI enforcement and prosecution, encouraging wider use of technology to stop repeat offenders, and increasing training and use of oral fluid devices to combat drugged driving.”
In the law, Congress mandated new vehicle systems that “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if a blood alcohol concentration above the legal limit is detected.”
Massie said his amendment would have halted the rule outright, if it had passed.
“I understand that my Republican colleagues are concerned about privacy, but the technology being developed does not track the vehicle’s location or collect, use, or store any data that would compromise the privacy of vehicle occupants,” said Pallone, the top-ranking Democrat on the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over vehicle safety and consumer affairs.
