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The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has begun the process to force carmakers to adopt technology that would prevent drunk drivers from starting vehicles.
The passive technology could help prevent the more than 10,000 road deaths that occur annually as a result of drunk-driving.
The move by the NHTSA has been prompted by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which directed the agency to mandate a passive technology to address this issue by November 2024. The NHTSA will also need to provide manufacturers with a notice period of a minimum of three years before the measure is implemented.
"We are trying to see can we get it done – does the technology exist in a way that is going to work every time?" said acting NHTSA administrator Ann Carlson.
In the recently published “advance notice of proposed rulemaking”, the NHTSA has said it has begun the process of gathering information regarding the technologies that could be used to prevent impaired people from starting a vehicle.
There are currently a number of technologies under development that could serve this purpose, ranging from breath- or touch-based sensors to detect alcohol, to cameras that monitor eye movements to try to determine whether drivers are intoxicated, or a combination of both.
Still, the NHTSA must be assured the technology works before it can require it, with Carlson stressing that that public acceptance of the technology would depend on its accuracy.
“If it's 99.9% accurate, you could have a million false positives,” she said. “Those false positives could be somebody trying to get to the hospital for an emergency.”
Tess Rowland, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), said the group was “very pleased” with the launch, and stressed that “victims and survivors are not going to let this die”.
According to NHTSA estimates, there are currently close to a billion separate daily driving journeys in the US. In 2021 alone, 13,384 people died in alcohol-impaired driving traffic accidents.
