New Technologies Aim to Prevent Drunk Driving

A government-industry consortium is developing two technologies aimed at preventing drunk drivers from operating a vehicle. The program, dubbed Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS), includes breath- and touch-based systems that can determine in less than a second if a driver's blood alcohol content is more than 0.08, which is the legal limit in all 50 states.

There are no plans to mandate the technology. But the partners aim to eventually make it a safety option similar to lane departure warning and adaptive braking systems. They say it can be seamlessly integrated into vehicles and won't affect normal driving behavior.

The consortium, which plans to further develop and test the systems over the next five years, showed working prototypes in test vehicles at a recent event at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's headquarters in Washington, D.C. The group also includes members of Congress, the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety an industry alliance that includes 17 automakers and consumer safety groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

The breath-based system was developed by Sweden's Autoliv Inc. The technology draws the driver's normal exhaled breath into a sensor that measures the concentrations of alcohol and carbon dioxide based on infrared radiation at specific wavelengths. The sensor, which could be integrated in the steering wheel or the driver's side door, would be tuned to measure only the driver's breath.

The touch detector is being developed by Japan's Takata Corp. and TruTouch Technologies Inc., a Westford, Mass.-based company that makes noninvasive alcohol detection systems for work site applications. The prototype vehicle system uses a near-infrared spectroscope to measure the concentration of alcohol in a driver's skin tissue. The sensor could be integrated into the steering wheel or a vehicle's stop-start button.

More than 10,000 deaths per year are linked to drunk drivers, NHTSA says. Limiting a driver's blood alcohol level to 0.08 or less would save about 7,000 lives per year, according to analysis by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The consortium hopes to put prototype systems in commercial and government fleets in coming years. They also note that both technologies could be customized to a zero blood alcohol content level for teen drivers.