Soon, Your Car Won't Let You Drive Drunk

by Monica Joshi

Drinking and driving -- it's a bad idea. Every 51 minutes, someone dies in a motor accident involving an alcohol-impaired driver. About 31 percent of all traffic-related deaths in the United States are due to alcohol-impaired driving crashes. Wouldn't it be better if a car just wouldn't start if the driver was drunk? A new technology, recently demonstrated by the Department of Transportation (DOT), might be able to do just that.

The new device will use special touchpads, located either in the push-to-start button or in the steering wheel, to measure whether or not the driver has been drinking.

A paper from the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS), a research program by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as well as several large automakers who helped fund the technology, explains how it works:

"Measurement begins by shining an infrared light on the driver’s skin. ... A portion of the light is reflected back to the skin’s surface, where it is collected by the touchpad. This light contains information on the skin’s unique chemical properties, including the concentration of alcohol."

If it is determined that the driver is over the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit, 0.08 percent or higher, the vehicle simply won't start. A second device being tested by DADDS uses the driver's breath to measure BAC. This new technology would allow the driver to breathe at a normal rate when sitting in the driver's seat and test the driver's breath to determine whether or not they are over the BAC limit.

One or both of the devices could be ready by 2020, available as an optional add-on for new cars. There have been numerous attempts made by organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to curtail deaths caused by drunk driving. They have tried to educate the public using anecdotes and facts on the topic and yet people still continue to get behind the wheel in an alcoholic haze. DOT's new technology might just be the practical answer that we are looking for. It is a surprise that this feature won’t be included as a standard feature on any vehicle, as this is something that could potentially save countless lives.

Perhaps, instead of improving technology that disallows us from driving, we should be thinking about ways that we could prevent ourselves from making bad decisions in the first place. Changing our mindset as opposed to simply altering the technology that we use. Dan Ariely makes a case for avoiding the irrational decisions that lead to grisly ends. The problem, he explains, is we've designed a world that tempts us to make poor decisions, especially with regard to what we eat and drink.