Anti-Drunk Driving Systems To Be Required In New Cars In America

The barely bipartisan infrastructure bill is awaiting President Biden’s signature and a lot of the focus has been on the billions promised to increase electric vehicle adoption.

However, that’s not the only automotive thing hiding in the massive piece of legislation. As noted by the Washington Post, the bill also aims to reduce drunk driving with “advanced impaired driving technology.”

According to section 24220 of the bill, “alcohol-impaired driving fatalities represent approximately 1/3 of all highway fatalities in the United States each year” and there were 10,142 in 2019 involving drivers with a blood alcohol concentration level of .08 or higher. However, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety believes that advanced drunk and impaired driving technology can prevent more than 9,400 fatalities annually.  Given this, the bill says “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles.”

Also Read: NHTSA Unveils Alcohol-Detection Vehicle Technology

It goes onto say these newly required systems can either passively monitor the performance of a driver to determine if they may be impaired, or passively detect whether their blood alcohol concentration is too high. If an impaired driver is detected, they must prevent or limit the operation of the vehicle.

The bill goes on to say The Advanced Drunk and Impaired Driving Prevention Technology Safety Standard should be in place within three years, and then automakers will be given up to three years to comply. However, the dates can change if needed and the legislation even envisions a scenario where nothing happens for a decade.

The bill leaves things pretty open ended, but there are a number of ways automakers could comply with the upcoming safety standard. Over the years, we’ve seen a number of technologies put forward to detect drunk drivers including everything from eye monitoring cameras to sensors integrated into the steering wheel. However, only time will tell what the government requires and when the rule will go into effect.