$1T bill may require anti-drunk driving tech, hot car alerts for new vehicles (Additional Coverage)

Source: https://nypost.com/

By Mark Lungariello

August 5, 2021

Anti-drunk driving technology may become standard on all cars in the next few years under one of the provisions baked into the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill.

The 2,702-page bill under negotiation also includes a provision that would require manufacturers to equip new vehicles with an alert system to let drivers know that kids or other passengers have been left in the backseat after the engine has been turned off.

The new technologies would target alcohol-related car crashes and increasing incidents of kids dying in hot cars.

The bill defines the preventative technology for impaired driving as anything that could “passively and accurately detect” if someone’s blood alcohol concentration is above the legal limit.

“To ensure the prevention of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles,” the bill states.

Stephanie Manning, chief government affairs officer for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, stressed that the bill would require passive technology.

“We are not talking about Breathalyzers, we are not talking about ignition interlocks – those are punitive measures,” Manning told The Post.

“You just get in your car and you go. It doesn’t hassle the sober driver, it doesn’t hassle anybody unless there’s a real problem with being able to safely operate the vehicle.”

“Smart” technology available or in development can detect erratic driving and gauge driver distraction by measuring when a driver’s eyes leave the road, she said.

Sensors can measure blood alcohol content by touch on a steering wheel or by “ambient air” in the car, she added.

If the bill becomes law as written, the secretary of transportation would have several years to implement the rule – with a specific process for notification to officials if there are any delays.

There were more than 10,000 alcohol-related driving deaths in 2019, the text of the bill reads and alcohol is estimated to be a factor in a third of all highway fatalities.

The trade organization The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States praised the additional technology and other provisions in the bill to make funding available to states to eliminate “multiple substance impaired driving.”

“We have seen a rise in total traffic deaths during the pandemic, including impaired driving fatalities,” the group said in a statement provided to The Post.

“It is now critically imperative that we pass strong traffic safety legislation to save lives.”

Anti-impairment technology can save 9,400 lives annually, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates. Manning said the technology was like a vaccine that could end a longstanding problem.

“There are thousands and thousands and thousands of people driving impaired on the road right now and we want to make sure that people who make those decisions to drive illegally . that they cannot use their cars as weapons anymore,” she said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports children dying from heat stroke in cars is on the rise, with 893 hot car deaths since 1998.

Fifty-three kids died of car-related heat strokes in both 2018 and 2019, the administration said. Last year, 25 died and another 10 have died this year so far, according to the data. The majority happen because the children are forgotten, according to the administration.

The infrastructure bill comes with provisions to study “unattended passenger” alerts in newly manufactured vehicles, and would direct grants for states for an education campaign on the risks of leaving kids in cars.

The technically “shall include a distinct auditory and visual alert” the bill states.