A controversial bill that would require all new cars to be fitted with AM radios looks set to become a law in the near future. Yesterday, Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass) revealed that the “AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act” now has the support of 60 US Senators, as well as 246 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, making its passage an almost sure thing. Should that happen, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would be required to ensure that all new cars sold in the US had AM radios at no extra cost.
I’m just going to assume there’s somebody that makes a single part, it’s all they make, but it has to go into every am radio; and that person paid off a bunch of lobbyists so they can keep selling that part.
It’s stupid. For emergency alerts, cell phones are vastly more useful, the Wireless Emergency System is far more featured, cell phones are likely in everyone’s pocket, and the system is as reliable as the EAS is.
Any other justification is stupid, and propping up AM is probably the result of said lobbyists…
All of the comments like these don’t understand the word emergency.
There are numerous plausible reasons cell phone towers, computers, and TV will be out in a true emergency.
I mean, hell, cell phone were unusable on 9/11 due to congestion, and even though it was a horrible event, it want an emergency the like of which are possible.
AM is dead fucking simple. Seriously. If you know what you’re doing, you can make a receiver with a wire, a resistor, and a speaker. You don’t even need power to run it.