The U.S. Wants Mandatory Breathalysers In Cars By 2026

Following in the footsteps of Europe, the Biden administration wants to see a future in which automakers fit breathalyzers to every vehicle that rolls off the production line. The equipment will aim to resolve America’s drunk driving problem which causes tens of thousands of deaths every year. Plans show the regulations could arrive in 2026, just three years away. 

The rule came as part of Biden’s $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Lawmakers clandestinely hid the clause in the fine print while discussing the benefits to the wider economy of the stimulus package and the effects on American railways, highways, and airports. 

What Are The Benefits? 

The potential benefits of anti-DUI technology in American vehicles could be significant. Every day, around 37 people die in drunk-driving-related accidents, translating to around one person every 39 minutes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). If vehicles are inoperable if a drunk person sits down at the wheel, it could save countless lives every year. 

Attorneys who deal with the aftermath of automotive accidents understand the horrors that some people endure after a collision. Car accident lawyer Adam S. Kutner is on the front line. 

“We see people practically every day who have been hurt by a car accident. It’s not just the physical injuries, which can be appalling, but also the emotional and financial harm these events cause. When a drunk drinker hits another vehicle and harms the passengers inside, many have to take weeks off work to recover and some feel so shocked they can’t go back out on the road again,” he says.

“The answer must be better technology, but the automotive industry hasn’t made any significant moves in this direction at all. Some people can fit devices to their vehicles to prevent drunk driving, but these are aftermarket and only usually installed after the courts find them guilty of a DUI. What’s needed is something preventative that stops people from making bad decisions and putting others at risk.”

There are indirect benefits to preventing drunk driving, too. Those in favour of Biden’s proposal also want to free up the court system. Judges and law enforcement dedicate enormous time to the solvable DUI problem when they could be focusing more on higher-value tasks, such as murder investigations and immigration control. 

There are also the untold economic costs that range into billions. Drunk driving incidents write off vehicles and cause people to drop out of the labour market, sometimes indefinitely if they sustain severe injuries. A new bill immobilising cars when the driver is drunk could prevent any of these costs from occurring for a small initial upfront investment by automakers and car owners. 

What Are The Problems?

While the Biden administration’s ideas sound good in theory, it is unlikely they will work in practice. Technology that passively measures drivers’ blood alcohol levels doesn’t exist. If it did, law enforcement would likely be using it already. 

As such, the automotive industry is scrambling to develop a technology that might fit the bill. Only one company, it seems, is in a position to provide the relevant technology, an obscure Japanese firm that makes alcohol sensors for nightclubs, workplaces and industrial facilities.

The company is currently working with various automakers and government agencies to make its technology feasible in vehicle cabins. Devices will work by detecting the atmospheric alcohol content using a sensor on the side door trim or steering column. Vehicles would ask drivers to exhale before turning on the engine to determine the alcohol content of their breath. While not perfectly passive, the technology shouldn’t involve the need to bring anything up to the mouth or in contact with it. 

Adam S. Kutner certainly believes that drunk driving needs to be eradicated. “When someone drives under the influence of alcohol, that individual puts everyone else on the road at risk. Intoxicated drivers have slower reaction times and can’t make decisions as fast as other road users, which leads to serious accidents,” he says. “In fact, we’ve seen an increase in wrong-way fatalities in the city in which I operate. People are so drunk, they are putting everyone at risk and causing untold damage to the lives of other people in the community.”

Why Wasn’t Europe First? 

Most people assumed the so-called “regulatory powerhouse” Europe would be the first to require the use of such technology on new vehicles, but that hasn’t happened. Swedish companies were working on a technology that would enable vehicles to detect alcohol on drivers’ breath, but making it operational and available for commercial purposes hasn’t been feasible thus far. The technology simply isn’t mature enough. 

The U.S. also has a significant lead because of years of effort by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The campaign group has been pressuring the auto industry to adopt anti-drunk driving technology as a safety feature in its vehicles to protect the public against its products. 

However, the real reasons may be purely economic. Biden is overseeing one of the most impressive expansions of the U.S. economy in history, making expensive regulations more palatable to the thriving auto industry. Thanks to the relatively young population in the country, the sector is still expanding and has the capacity to follow regulatory requirements, even if they are onerous and put up prices. 

Europe is not in the same position. The continent is experiencing sluggish growth and its population is only getting older with each passing year. Car makers are already struggling and asking them to include unproven and untested technology in their vehicles could raise prices and crash the ailing market even more, putting government tax revenues at risk. 

Ultimately, the new decision by the Biden administration to make breathalysers mandatory will help push the technology globally. The reduction in premature deaths could be substantial. However, autonomous driving is right on the horizon. Many companies now have working prototypes ready to remove drivers’ responsibility completely. As such, this latest move might be too little, too late. We could already be staring at the end of the DUI era without it. 

(Devdiscourse's journalists were not involved in the production of this article. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Devdiscourse and Devdiscourse does not claim any responsibility for the same.)