NHTSA Unveils DADSS, New Car Technology to Prevent Drunken Driving

Shot of the NHTSA demo video for their new technology which plans to read your breath to check Blood Alcohol Levels

If you think you can drive in a drunken state and yet outsmart the cops, think again! The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) displayed a prototype vehicle today in Washington, D.C., integrated with a hi-tech alcohol detection system which can easily find out whether or not a car is being manoeuvred by a driver who is drunk.

This new technology, named as DADSS (Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety) makes use of touch sensors to detect the level of alcohol in blood. It can instantly detect the level from the skin or the breath of drivers, and disable the vehicle if it finds the alcohol level in blood to be more than 0.08% – which is level permitted by the law in all of the 50 states in the U.S.

The system is being developed by the federal government in collaboration with major car manufacturers and suppliers. The breath-based detection system is being created by the Autoliv Development of Sweden and it would work with the help of a sensor added on the steering wheel of the vehicle which would draw the exhaled breath of drivers. The touch-based system, on the other hand, is being created by Japanese auto supplier Takata along with TruTouch which is an alcohol sensing expert that makes use of near-infrared spectroscopy.

The two systems would be offered for around $400 on future automobiles as important but optional accessories. These will take at least 5 years to come, and as of now there is no initiative to make these equipments mandatory for car owners.

However, the systems indicate a positive step on the part of the government in the light of constant increase in the number of automobile accidents caused by drunken driving. As head of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Mark Rosekind, put it, “Drunk driving takes a life every 58 minutes in America. But it doesn’t have to be this way…” It can only be hoped that the new systems would be able to curb the number of drunken driving accidents significantly.

Here’s a video demonstration.