By Andrew Liszewski
Those court-ordered breathalyzers that prevent a car from starting until you blow an acceptable blood alcohol level are effective, but they’re not exactly quick. And they have to be installed as an after-market component. But a new system, being developed by the North American division of a research company called QinetiQ and funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, could already be built-in to vehicles as they roll off the assembly line, invisible to the driver.
Instead of having to blow into a tube, the vehicle’s steering wheel or door handles would be equipped with new touch-based sensor technology that can read a driver’s blood alcohol level through their skin. And the results would be calculated almost instantaneously, taking less than a second. So far functioning prototypes have been demonstrated so the technology is definitely enroute, however the head of the NHTSA, David Strickland, says that it won’t be employed until it’s “seamless, unobtrusive and unfailingly accurate…” Yeah, probably a good idea.
[ The Economic Times – Future cars to decide if driver is drunk ] VIA [ Slashdot ]
Hurrah! We're safe from all the drunk drivers that don't own gloves!
This one device that will police to determine who's drunk on the road. Why not make steering wheels that can detect if a driver is high and had drugs. That would be more useful.
“Honest steering wheel, I'm not drunk, it's the alcohol gel hand disinfectant. It's not my fault it has the wrong type of alcohol in it.”
It would be neat if the sensors were in the passenger area and used the detected alcohol to recharge the batteries for the hybrid / electric cars.
Really??? I imagine/assume they would make it so that your skin had to be in contact with the wheel.. Some things are too obvious to mention.