by Press Releases for National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (NHTSA)

WALTHAM, MA – U.S. Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Ray LaHood (@RayLaHood) and National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tor David Strick­land (@NHTSAgov) today took a first look at new Dri­ver Alco­hol Detec­tion Sys­tem for Safety (DADSS) tech­nol­ogy being devel­oped to pre­vent alcohol-impaired dri­vers from oper­at­ing their vehi­cles while under the influence.

Sec­re­tary LaHood and Admin­is­tra­tor Strick­land were joined by Shane Karr, vice pres­i­dent for Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment Affairs at the Alliance of Auto­mo­bile Man­u­fac­tur­ers, and Laura Dean Mooney (@maddnatlpres), national pres­i­dent of Moth­ers Against Drunk Dri­ving (MADD) (@maddonline), and JD Crouch, pres­i­dent of Qine­tiQ North America’s Tech­nol­ogy Solu­tions Group (@QinetiQNorthAm) for a demon­stra­tion of DADSS tech­nol­ogy at the Qine­tiQ lab where it is under devel­op­ment in Waltham, Massachusetts.

While still in the devel­op­men­tal stages, DADSS is seen as a poten­tial tool for keep­ing drunk dri­vers from being able oper­ate their car if their blood alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion is at or above the legal intox­i­ca­tion limit (.08 BAC or higher). The tech­nol­ogy could be vol­un­tar­ily installed as an option for new cars. One sys­tem under eval­u­a­tion deter­mines the blood alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion through a touch-based approach and another sys­tem uses a breath-based approach.

NHTSA research shows that dri­vers involved in fatal acci­dents with blood alco­hol lev­els above the .08 legal limit are eight times more likely to have had a prior con­vic­tion for impaired dri­ving than dri­vers who had no alco­hol in their bod­ies at the time of a wreck.

“Drunk dri­ving con­tin­ues to be a national tragedy that need­lessly claims the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple on our high­ways each year,” said Sec­re­tary LaHood. “We need to put an end to it.”

MADD Pres­i­dent Laura Dean-Mooney, who was left a widow and sin­gle mother when a drunk dri­ver killed her hus­band, Mike Dean, wel­comed the progress of the DADSS research effort, say­ing, “Auto mak­ers have stepped up to help turn cars into the cure. This project has made sub­stan­tial progress and this tech­nol­ogy could one day be an impor­tant step in our efforts to elim­i­nate drunk dri­ving.”

DADSS is being devel­oped under a five-year, $10 mil­lion coop­er­a­tive ini­tia­tive between NHTSA and the Auto­mo­tive Coali­tion for Traf­fic Safety (ACTS), an indus­try group rep­re­sent­ing most of the world’s auto makers.

“What we’re doing is devel­op­ing tech­nol­ogy that won’t inter­fere with sober dri­vers, will require vir­tu­ally no main­te­nance or upkeep and will have such pre­ci­sion that it only stops a dri­ver when their blood alco­hol con­tent is .08 BAC or higher, which is the ille­gal limit for drunk dri­ving in every state,” said Shane Karr. “Now that we have actual pro­to­types, a tremen­dous feat in itself, we’ll be work­ing to iden­tify the gaps in per­for­mance between these pro­to­types and the pre­cise stan­dards we’ve iden­ti­fied as true tech­nol­ogy require­ments. This will point the way for­ward for the next phase of research.”

“The tech­nol­ogy we are see­ing here today could quite sim­ply sig­nal a new fron­tier in the fight against drunk dri­ving,” said NHTSA Admin­is­tra­tor Strickland.

The next stage of devel­op­ment, which would include prac­ti­cal demon­stra­tions of one or more of the alco­hol detec­tion tech­nolo­gies, could begin later this year.

“What­ever the future holds for these advanced drunk dri­ving pre­ven­tion tech­nolo­gies, one thing remains clear; no tech­nol­ogy can, or should, ever replace a driver’s per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity not to drive drunk,” the Admin­is­tra­tor said.

In 2009, 10,839 peo­ple died nation­wide in crashes involv­ing a drunk dri­ver.
These deaths make up 32 per­cent of all fatal crashes.

• Click here for addi­tional infor­ma­tion about DADDs

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