New Car Hopes To Stop Drink Driving

It’s the weekend and you’ve gone for a small drink with your friends. Suddenly one turns into two, and two into three. You go to start your car, put the key in the ignition and then suddenly from nowhere, “I’m sorry, I can’t do that”. No your not losing your mind or experiencing the start of a robotic revolution,  instead a new system that could be in your cars soon has detected your blood alcohol level and refuses to start for you. Taxi tonight it is.

DADSS (Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety) is a new system that could potentially be installed in cars in the near future. At the moment, two prototypes are in testing, first up is the good old fashion breathalyser method, with a sensor in the steering wheel or driver side door. The alternative is a touch sensor on the gear shift or ignition button, that would ‘scan’ your blood alcohol level. If either of these pickups read higher than the legal limit and your car won’t start.

While not designed as a required feature for new cars, the makers, the national highway traffic safety agency (NHTSA) means parents could pay that little extra to ensure that no one makes a decision to just pop down the shops for a little extra drink after a few during a party. A demonstration of the system can be seen in the video below.

While it’s getting safer to drive, anyone who has been impacted by drunk driving can tell you that figures don’t matter. One mistake is all it takes, and with systems like DADSS being created to help curve away those single mistakes the roads can only get safer.

Thank you Ars Technica for the information.

Image courtesy of Love cars.