More convicted drunken drivers may have to blow into devices that won’t let them start their cars if they’re intoxicated now that several states are embracing tougher penalties.
Will all autos some day have breathalyzers?
April 28, 2006
By Jayne O’Donnell, USA TODAY
Could the day be coming when every driver is checked for drinking before starting a car?
Widespread use of ignition interlock devices that won’t allow a car to be started if a driver has had too much alcohol, once considered radical, no longer seems out of the question. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) gives a qualified endorsement to the idea. New York state legislators are considering requiring the devices on all cars and trucks by 2009. And automakers, already close to offering the devices as optional equipment on all Volvo and Saab models in Sweden, are considering whether to bring the technology here.
Could the day be coming when every driver is checked for drinking before starting a car?
Widespread use of ignition interlock devices that won’t allow a car to be started if a driver has had too much alcohol, once considered radical, no longer seems out of the question. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) gives a qualified endorsement to the idea. New York state legislators are considering requiring the devices on all cars and trucks by 2009. And automakers, already close to offering the devices as optional equipment on all Volvo and Saab models in Sweden, are considering whether to bring the technology here.
Manufacturers are perfecting technology that could detect alcohol on the skin surface, eliminating the need for the current, cumbersome, blow-into-a-tube breath-analyzing systems. Current breathalyzers cost about $1,000. The newer systems are expected to cost about the same.
The New York bill was introduced by Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, who also sponsored the bill that became the first law banning the use of handheld cellphones while driving. To those who say neither the public nor the technology is ready for such a universal application, Ortiz says he heard similar complaints about the cellphone ban and hands-free technology. He compares the criticism to early complaints about mandatory safety belts.
But Ortiz’s bill faces a tough fight. The idea of forcing every driver to pass a blood alcohol test to start a car raises privacy concerns, irritates non-drinkers and has some restaurant industry officials worrying about a march back to Prohibition, or at least the demonizing of social drinking.
MADD and others trying to reduce the 17,000 alcohol-related fatalities a year say ignition interlocks are the only sure way to separate potential drunken drivers from their “weapons.”
“If the public wants it and the data support it, it is literally possible that the epidemic of drunk driving could be solved where cars simply could not be operated by drunk drivers,” says Chuck Hurley, CEO of MADD, which is hosting its first conference on drunken-driving technology in June.
“What a great day that would be.”
MADD doesn’t currently support requiring the devices on all cars because it doesn’t think the technology is ready. For now, the organization prefers requiring the devices, called ignition interlocks, for anyone convicted of a first drunken-driving offense.
About 70,000 ignition interlocks are on vehicles — most of them ordered by courts for repeat drunken-driving offenders.
Even without universal use, there’s a huge potential market in the 1.4 million people who are arrested for drunken driving each year. Legislation is pending in at least 12 states that would require interlocks for some or all first-time offenders.
Driver sees it as ‘a life preserver’
Steven Carter, a Colorado Springs-based photographer, voluntarily put one on his Honda Prelude last year after his third drunken-driving arrest since 1999. He had quit drinking but installed it as a “safeguard with me.”
The decision was fortunate: Four months ago, Carter had a relapse and tried to drive his car after drinking at a bar.
It wouldn’t start, so he took a cab home and went back the next day to get it. It still wouldn’t start because he set his device to detect alcohol above a 0.01 blood-alcohol level.
Carter, 27, who is hoping to compete as a skier in the 2010 Winter Olympics, thinks interlocks should be required on all cars. He believes insurance company discounts for voluntary installation — which some interlock makers are pushing — would be a good place to start.
“Some of my friends see it as a toy, but in my opinion, it’s more like a life preserver,” Carter says.
State Farm Insurance spokesman Dick Luedke says interlock discounts wouldn’t make much sense because “for the majority of our customers, installing one of these things would have absolutely no impact. For the person who does have the problem and does install (the device), if it does inhibit him from driving impaired, that’s worth way more than a lower insurance rate.”
Barry Sweedler, a former National Transportation Safety Board official, is trying to persuade automakers to put the wiring for ignition interlocks in all cars to make it easier to install the devices. And once interlocks can automatically check alcohol levels without any action from drivers, Sweedler thinks they should be standard equipment on cars.
Current technology requires a driver to blow heavily into a breathalyzer device before starting the car and regularly while driving. With that system, “Unless a person is an offender, to require it for everyone is too intrusive,” says Sweedler, past president of an anti-impaired-driving group that has sponsored ignition interlock conferences for the past six years.
George Ballance, director of sales and marketing for device maker DraegerSafety, says his company advocates interlocks as part of teen driving laws and insurance company discounts.
“We want to get on the preventive side of the cycle and not just be on the court-ordered side,” he says.
Draeger encourages its employees to carry pocket breath analyzers and would fire any worker convicted of drunken driving.
“We’re not here to say, ‘Don’t drink.’ We’re here to say ‘Don’t drink and drive,’ ” Ballance says.
Opposition to breathalyzers
Such talk makes John Doyle, executive director of the American Beverage Institute, cringe. “This campaign is a lot further down the pike than people realize,” says Doyle, whose group is funded by chains including Outback Steakhouse and Chili’s and is leading the opposition to broader use of interlocks.
He says the existing devices are costly and easy to defeat, by getting someone else to blow into them or using an air compressor instead of a driver’s own breath. Besides, he says most drunken-driving deaths are caused by hard-core offenders who have slipped through the system.
“How far are you going to go to reduce alcohol-related fatalities?” Doyle asks. “Maybe they should make driving at night illegal.”
Opposition comes from other sources, too. Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU, says his group opposes laws that require judges to mandate interlocks for convicted drunken drivers. Rhode Island’s Legislature is considering a bill that would require interlocks for second-time offenders and first-time offenders with a blood-alcohol level above 0.15, which correlates to drinking seven drinks in an hour for a 170-pound male.
“Our concern about mandatory penalties is that they don’t allow courts to take all situations into account, including that the cost is quite significant and the effect it has on family members,” Brown says. “Some individuals can’t afford it.”
While automakers are working on interlock technology, they are cautious. General Motors safety chief Bob Lange says his company has been working on ways to integrate alcohol-detection devices into cars for 30 years, but still doesn’t think any are close to ready for widespread use in this country.
“If the technology incorrectly restricts … sober individuals, it is unlikely to be supported,” says Lange, who says systems must be “transparent” to non-drinkers. “Public acceptance and technological viability are essential.”
Sue Cischke, Ford Motor’s safety chief, agrees obstacles remain. “Some of the challenges include designing a system that is most of all accurate, not easily disabled or avoided, is easy to use and does not create driver-distraction issues.”
Swedish brands Volvo, owned by Ford, and Saab, owned by GM, are at the forefront of auto industry efforts to incorporate interlocks into cars. Swedish regulators are expected to soon propose a deadline of 2012 for all cars in that country to have alcohol interlocks.
Volvo’s Alcolock — which is built into the seat belt buckle — will likely be available as an option on cars in Sweden within three years. Saab’s Alcokey has the technology built into the key.
For automakers, anything that keeps a car from starting sounds too much like the public relations nightmare that came out of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 1973 decision to require devices that would prevent cars from starting if seat belts weren’t buckled. After a huge public outcry and widespread disconnections, Congress passed a law the following year prohibiting NHTSA from requiring seat belt interlocks or warning buzzers lasting more than eight seconds.
Some critics say alcohol-related interlocks would be even more problematic than seat belt interlocks because about 40% of adults say they don’t drink at all. MADD’s Hurley says most people don’t steal or have their cars stolen, but keys still have built-in anti-theft technology.
Ortiz agrees: “This is a tool that will save lives. We have to stop putting parameters on it.”
Ortiz disputes claims that the technology is not ready, but even interlock makers don’t think their systems should be offered on all cars — yet. Albuquerque-based TruTouch Technologies, which makes a device that detects alcohol using light rays through the surface of the skin, will introduce a version for use in police stations next year to replace breathalyzers. CEO Jim McNally says he is talking to automakers about offering his system as an option, but not until at least 2010.
New Mexico, which has the toughest interlock law in the country, isn’t ready to go as far as Ortiz is proposing. Last year, New Mexico passed the first law requiring interlocks for first-time drunken-driving offenders after earlier debating — and rejecting — mandatory installation in all vehicles.
Wary of ‘annoying’ car buyers
Volvo technical safety adviser Thomas Brobergsays he isn’t sure mandating interlock technology is the way to go: “It might not be good to force these kinds of systems onto customers. There are quite a few things that can be quite annoying to the customer.”
Jim Champagne, a former Louisiana state police lieutenant colonel who spent decades responding to drunken-driving crashes and now chairs the Governors Highway Safety Association, is guardedly optimistic about the prospects for interlocks.
Champagne says he would “love to see” optional interlock devices offered.
“It would give an opportunity for parents and guardians to get more involved,” he says. But as standard equipment on all cars? “To tell the American public this is going to be on your car? No way.”
States turn on to idea of ignition locks
June 23, 2005
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
More convicted drunken drivers may have to blow into devices that won’t let them start their cars if they’re intoxicated now that several states are embracing tougher penalties.
New Mexico last Friday became the first state to require “ignition interlock” systems for first-time offenders. The devices, which act as breath-alcohol analyzers that control a car’s ignition, will be on their cars for one year. Drivers with four or more DWI convictions are required to drive with the interlocks for the rest of their lives.
The devices cost the offenders about $1,000 a year.
Until now, they were required only for repeat offenders and for a maximum of a year.
“This is the first time it’s been so broad,” Jonathan Adkins, communications director for the Governors Highway Safety Association, says of the New Mexico law. “States realize we haven’t won the drunken driving battle yet.”
At the same time, the Senate version of a federal highway spending bill before Congress threatens to withhold about $600 million in highway construction and maintenance funds if states don’t subject high-risk offenders to stiffer sanctions, including ignition interlocks and license suspensions.
‘Excellent tool’
Mothers Against Drunk Driving says 17,000 people are killed and a half-million injured in alcohol-related crashes every year. Only 18 states have mandatory ignition interlock laws, according to MADD President Wendy Hamilton.
“They have to play a bigger role,” she says about the devices. “They’re an excellent tool and should be used for higher-risk drivers.”
High-risk drivers include repeat offenders and those convicted of driving with a blood-alcohol levels of 0.15% or higher. By August, when a Minnesota law goes into effect, the legal limit in every state will be 0.08%.
Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have the option to make convicted drunken drivers use interlocks, MADD says. More are making them mandatory, applying the sentence to all offenders or lengthening the penalty:
• This month, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill that allows the state to require the device without a court order.
• Last year, Washington state began requiring interlocks for first-time offenders with a blood-alcohol level of 0.15% or higher.
• New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, who spearheaded legislation that bans hands-on use of cell phones while driving in his state, introduced a bill that would require interlocks on all new cars. A similar measure failed in New Mexico last year, but others are being proposed in New Jersey, Connecticut and Washington state.
Growing business
About 80,000 interlocks are used in the USA, according to Lamar Ball, chief executive of Smart Start Inc., a manufacturer in Irving, Texas.
“I would expect that to more than double in the next five years,” he says. His business is growing 30% a year.
Interlocks also can be installed voluntarily by parents who worry about their teenage children’s driving habits. The system keeps a log of failed attempts to turn on the ignition.
Some drivers have tried to bypass the system by starting the car when sober and drinking while the engine is running. Others have used air compressor hoses. The devices now require random breath samples while the person is driving. They have only a few minutes to comply.
Amy Berning, research psychologist at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, says interlocks are “extremely effective” when they’re on a car. “The concern is when the devices come off the vehicle, the recidivism starts to go back up.”
Tackling the problem
New Mexico, which ranks sixth in the nation in the rate of alcohol-related car fatalities, is becoming one of the toughest enforcers. There are 3,000 interlocks on cars in the state, the highest per capita of any state.
In 2003, 198 of New Mexico’s 439 traffic fatalities were alcohol-related, according to the most recent government data. It was the first time since 1998 that the state’s alcohol-related fatalities fell below 200.
Fighting drunken driving is one of Gov. Bill Richardson’s signature issues. He has appointed DWI Czar Rachel O’Connor and several task forces to tackle the problem of repeat offenders and set up drunken-driving checkpoints statewide.
“An interlock device is like a mechanical probation officer on duty and monitoring DWI offenders 24 hours per day and seven days per week,” Richardson says. “It’s a wonderful device. It’s going to dramatically curb DWI in New Mexico.”
