New Law Will Require Cars in Americaland to Test If You Are Sober

Automologist MAC brings us news that could signal an end to drunk driving in the USA. 

Could be a thing of the past.

The way law-making works in the US of A is pretty unfathomable at the best of times. But here is the thing – very soon you may have to prove to your car that you are sober enough to drive. Of course, drinking and driving is pretty reckless and some of you may think of this as a good thing, but why haven’t we heard of this initiative?

Well, it turns out that buried deep in the most recent bi-partisan infrastructure bill, somewhere on page 2,700 I am reliably informed by my mate over there, that is slowly making its negotiated way through the US of A government is a provision that mandates all cars from 2027 to be fitted with a drunk driver testing system.

In the US of A alone, more than 10,000 people die annually due to excess alcohol consumption. If and if the legislation is passed, then there would be a firm release date to the federal research programme that has been developed in cooperation with the automotive industry for decades now.

The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and the ACTS (Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety) have come up with the unfortunately named DADSS (Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety). Once we have navigated through the alphabet spaghetti of acronyms, we find that there are actually two separate DADSS systems: the first detects ambient alcohol in the blood via a sort of benign breathalyser that is sampling the cabin air and is capable of distinguishing between the driver and a passenger; the second is incorporated into the start button and can distinguish blood alcohol through the skin – not sure if it can distinguish whether it is really the person behind the wheel who is pushing the button though.

Both systems are designed to be passive monitoring systems so the driver does not have to do anything to be tested. Assuming that the car then detects there is excess alcohol, then the starting system will be disabled but the car will still be able to run the climate control systems. So, as the DADSS technology is coming out of the NHTSA and ACTS and assuming that it works and the legislation is passed, you can pretty much bet that it is coming to a car manufacturer near you real soon.