Okay, we all know about basic ignition interlock devices that analyze your breath and determine whether or not your key will function – it’s a device generally used to punish drunk drivers. But new technology currently in an early prototype phase uses automatic sensors to gauge a drivers fitness to drive in an instant, though federal officials and researchers say it could take as long as a decade before it’s in use across the board.
Recently, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood spent time at the Waltham, MA-based R&D facility QinetiQ North America, where he witnessed the first public demonstration of a device that can measure whether or not your blood alcohol content is at (or above) the legal limit of 0.08 and then prevent the vehicle from starting. Unlike existing interlock systems, however, this doesn’t require you to blow into an analysis device. In fact, it’s designed to be fairly unobtrusive.
Instead, the new system, which is known as the Driver Alcohol Detection Systems for Safety (here’s hoping they call it DADSS, and use that as an advertising hook) can also analyze your breath, but it also uses touch-based sensors attached to steering wheels and door locks to determine your level of drunkenness (or not) from your skin. Either way, there are no extra steps required from the driver, and if you’re sober, you don’t have to wait for it to decide to let you drive.
Secretary LaHood referred to the DADSS device as “another arrow in our automotive safety quiver” and emphasized that it was envisioned as a voluntary, optional piece of equipment that auto manufacturers could offer.
Also present at the demonstration was David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who also estimated that this technology could prevent as 9.000 fatal alcohol-related crashes every year, though he was very aware that it is still in early testing stages, and unlikely to be commercially available for 8-10 years. He stressed that the systems would not be employed until the technology could be proven to be “…seamless, unobtrusive and unfailingly accurate.”
The NHTSA co-funded the initial $10 million research program with the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, and industry organization that represents many car makers around the world.
The DADSS system is not without its critics, however. The American Beverage Institute’s Sarah Longwell expressed doubts that such a system could ever be completely reliable, and not prevent some completely sober people from taking the wheel. She said, “Even if the technology is 99.9 percent reliable, that’s still tens of thousands of cars that won’t start every day.”
Her organization also disputes that a limit of 0.08 is high enough to stop all drunk drivers, since blood alcohol levels can rise during a trip, depending on how recently it was ingested, and whether or not there was food as well. “It’s going to eliminate the ability of people to have a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at a ball game and then drive home, something that is perfectly safe and currently legal in all 50 states,” Longwell said.
Secretay LaHood, on the other hand, said that the threshold in cars would never be set below the legal limit, and he denies that the system would interfere with “moderate social drinking.”
According to Bud Zaouk, director of transportation safety and security fr QinetiQ, in the demonstration, which took place last Friday, a roughly 120-pound woman in her 20s drank 2 1.5-ounce glasses of vodka and orange juice about half an hour apart, snacking on cheese and crackers between drinks to simulate a typical social setting. She registered a blood alcohol level of 0.06 using both the touch- and breath-based prototypes, making her able to start her car.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving president Laura Dean Mooney was also at the demonstration, and she said this technology could “…turn cars into the cure.”
Mooney, whose husband died in an accident caused by a drunk driver nineteen years ago, didn’t anticipate the DADSS device ever being mandated by the government, but she told the press should could envision it someday being as common as anti-lock brakes or air bags, especially if insurance companies institute incentives for those drivers who use it.