Should your vehicle stop you from driving drunk?
It doesn’t seem like much of a reach, technologically speaking. There are many cars available that can already program their destinations, steer themselves, park themselves, stop themselves if you have a heart attack behind the wheel, make sure you don’t hit the car ahead if you’re texting, and stop (sometimes) if a kid runs out in front of it. Some car manufacturers (okay, one) don’t seem to mind if their social media acolytes (and casualties) are lounging in the back seat, nowhere near the controls. Gotta land that YouTube hit.
We get it — the technology has moved on from cruise control and intermittent wipers, past traction and stability control, and onto cars sporting sensors and cameras that detect pretty much everything that is happening while the driver is behind the wheel, includingfalling asleep.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is calling for “alcohol impairment detection systems to be included in all new vehicles.” The request is coming after another devastating crash involving a drunk, speeding driver (this one, from California on New Year’s Day, 2021, killed nine, including seven children), but these crashes occur daily.
Their demand to manufacturers, by 2024: “Requiring passive vehicle-integrated alcohol impairment detection systems, advance driver monitoring systems or a combination of the two that would be capable of preventing or limiting vehicle operation if it detects driver impairment by alcohol. The NTSB recommends that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) require all new vehicles to be equipped with such systems.”
They’re not specifying what form the detection devices should take, but current innovation shows we’re quickly getting beyond the traditional ignition interlocks, or breathalyzers-to-go. Quebec jumped to the forefront in trying to curb repeat offenders in 2019, when it introduced some of the toughest punishments in the world. Get two impaired convictions in ten years, have an ignition interlockpermanently attached to your vehicle, and blow for life. A blower’s licence will also have a brand on it that tells police to look for the device. There is an assortment of fines and suspensions for trying to circumvent the law, including getting borrowed vehicles impounded. Not sure about borrowed breath.
The latest Canadian statistics have at least a two-year lag that is further complicated by the impact of COVID behaviours over that time. Speeding, impairment, and distraction remain the top three killers on our roadways, often in tandem with one another. To tackle speeding, the NTSB is also requesting at this time to “incentiviz[e] vehicle manufacturers and consumers to adopt intelligent speed adaptation systems that would prevent speed-related crashes. This is a reiteration of a previous NTSB recommendation to NHTSA.”
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Speed governors are always a fun topic. “Why should our vehicles be capable of going any faster than the highest legal speed limit,” asks one message in my inbox.
Instead, with the rapid advancement of vehicle tech, nobody has to go after that beast. Just make the cars smart enough to slow down and take over from the driver. It’s a big ask of manufacturers when we already have vehicles supposedly able to perform such front-brain duties not proving reliably able to do so. Reports of phantom braking are growing. It’s not enough to have the capability; it’s about having it function consistently, and we’re not there yet.
The request for “passive vehicle-integrated alcohol impairment detection systems” might be initially fraught with similar failure rates, but the technology has advanced far beyond the cringe-worthy revelation that the driver you’ve just accepted a ride with has to blow into a device to get the car started. Remember The 40-Year-Old Virgin? When an obviously drunk Leslie Mann asks an obviously sober Steve Carrell to, “here, blow into this,” because the judge recommended she get one, it pointed out the easiest way to get around the roadblocks that Quebec (and many other jurisdictions) have relied on to curb the drunks. This would be an “active” impairment detection system.
What’s a passive one look like? Current incarnations seem to follow two routes, as explained by DADSS — Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, a public-private research program partnering with the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety (ACTS), which represents the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers, and NHTSA.
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The passive systems could use one of two approaches. The breath system “measures alcohol as a driver breathes normally, when the in the driver’s seat. It will be designed to take instantaneous readings as the driver breathes normally and to accurately and reliably distinguish between the driver’s breath and that of any passengers.”
Thetouch system technology “measures blood alcohol levels under the skin’s surface by shining an infrared light through the fingertip of the driver. It will be integrated into current vehicle controls, such as the start button or steering wheel, and take multiple, accurate readings.”
At this time, developers still seem to be skirting around the same issue of impairment that law enforcement is struggling with: alcohol impairment is measurable and on the books; impairment from drugs, legal or otherwise, is proving to be harder to nail down and tougher still to prosecute.
You can worst-case scenario this all day long, as I did. (“What if someone kidnaps you, and has spiked your drink, and driven you out to some vast wasteland and you manage to kill them and then have to get yourself to safety and you can’t drive the car because it won’t let you start it? Will I have to Weekend at Bernie’s this to get home?”). The fact remains that without some kind of intervention along these proposed lines, there is a stubborn, hardcore set of impaired drivers that will not be kept from driving through any other means.
Just make sure it’s bulletproof before you brick a car on someone.
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