Eliminating Impaired Driving
Thursday, April 27th, 2023 Auto Legislation & RegulationThe recent infrastructure law passed by Congress in 2021 has the potential to end one of the most persistent highway safety problems - impaired driving - and prevent more than 9,000 deaths a year.
The law mandates that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) require every new passenger vehicle to be equipped with a system that prevents an alcohol-impaired driver from operating it.
One system being tried out in fleets was developed by the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) project, a partnership between NHTSA and the auto industry.
The DADSS breath-based system is in some ways similar to ignition interlocks that are often installed by court order on the vehicles of people convicted of driving while intoxicated. However, the passive system doesn’t require the driver to blow into a tube or take any special action; it simply analyzes the driver’s exhalations from normal breathing and prevents the vehicle from moving if it determines the driver has had too much to drink.
Measures such as conducting sobriety checkpoints and implementing enforcement campaigns, mandating court-ordered interlocks, enforcing the drinking age of 21, and redefining impairment as a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) level of 0.05 percent or above have all proven effective in addressing impaired driving.
While fewer people drink and drive today than in past decades, those people are responsible for an outsize number of fatalities.
Implementing an impaired driving prevention requirement is a significant step towards ensuring safety, but its effects won’t be immediate. It will likely take several decades for these prevention systems to become widespread, even if Congress enforces the mandate.
