Sometimes the news isn’t new. It just goes unnoticed for a while.
For instance, did you know that the law will require all new cars to have devices preventing drunk drivers from starting them within a few years? If you did, you beat some in the auto industry.
Automotive News, an industry publication, reports that “the auto industry is scurrying to come up with the technology.”
Congress included the measure, which some safety groups had spent years lobbying for, in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
It doesn’t mean cars will have built-in Breathalyzers next year.
The act requires National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to publish rules explaining what the devices should do by the end of 2024. The agency can seek an extension if it finds the industry isn’t ready. Even when NHTSA publishes guidelines, the rules could take a year or more to take effect.
But automakers are scrambling to figure out how to implement it because the technology, Automotive News says, “does not exist yet — at least, not as a commercialized market-friendly original-equipment vehicle component.”
Interlock devices that test breath for alcohol and can prevent a car from starting have existed for years. In some states, courts can mandate them for drivers convicted of impaired driving. But the companies that supply parts to automakers want to develop something less obtrusive.
Japanese electronics supplier Asahi Kasei plans “a small sensor that could be embedded in the steering column or side door trim” to do the task.
Why isn’t the industry ready yet? Mike Franchy, director of North American mobility for Asahi Kasei, says, “everybody assumed we’d see it required first in Europe. It really came about here in the U.S. thanks to years of effort by Mothers Against Drunk Driving.”
