Approximately 11,000 people die from alcohol-related crashes every year, and impaired drivers are responsible for about one-third of all traffic deaths. But new technology currently being developed in the United States would go directly to the source of the problem by preventing intoxicated drivers from operating their vehicles.

The technology is being developed by a company called QinetiQ and companies in Sweden and New Mexico, and was displayed for the first time at a press conference in Waltham, Massachusetts last Friday. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration teamed up with the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety back in 2008, donating $10 million to support development of the technology.

The system, called Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS), measures the blood alcohol content of the driver through either a touch-based or breath-based system. In a touch-based system, the BAC would be measured through contact with the wheel and other parts of the car and would be calculated through light absorption. In a breath-based system an infrared light detector would measure the driver's breath.

Because the technology works on the problem of drunk driving more directly lane departure warnings and adaptive cruise control, it is hoped that DADSS will help prevent the occurrence of many deaths resulting from drinking and driving. Officials said that roughly 9,000 lives could be saved every year if such technology were standard.

Researchers are still attempting to figure out how to isolate the driver's breath from that of other vehicle occupants, but the technology is designed to be unobtrusive, so that a driver would only be prevented from operating the vehicle if a BAC of .08 or above is detected. Other kinds are still being worked out of the system, and developers are shooting to make the technology extremely accurate and reliable every time, as well as very low maintenance.

In our next post, we'll continue to look at this story and the hopes and reactions surrounding Driver Alcohol Detection technology.

Source: Wicked Local Waltham, "U.S. transit chief checks out Waltham firm's drunken driving technology," Ignacio Laguarda, 1 Feb 2011.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/waltham/features/x19211120/U-S-transit-chief-checks-out-Waltham-firms-drunken-driving-technology