Alcohol Detection Systems Could Prevent More Than A Fourth Of U.S. Road Fatalities

Alcohol-detection systems that stop people from drinking and driving could prevent more than a quarter of U.S. road fatalities and save upwards of 9,000 lives a year, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows.

“We haven’t made much progress in the fight against drunk driving since the mid-1990s,” says Charles Farmer, IIHS vice president of research and statistical services and the author of the paper. “This is something that could put a real dent in the alcohol-impaired driving problem.”

Alcohol has been a factor in 30 percent of U.S. roadway deaths every year for the past decade.

Meanwhile, police arrest about 1 million people a year for alcohol-impaired driving. Systems that can detect the percentage of alcohol in the driver’s blood and prevent the vehicle from moving if it is higher than a predetermined limit could slash those numbers.