Skip to main content

Calls for drunk driving prevention research measure

A broad range of safety, auto, insurance and alcohol industry groups and companies has called on the US Congress to pass legislation to provide funding for an advanced drunk driving detection research programme. They claim it could lead to more than 8,000 fewer highway fatalities each year and a nationwide economic cost saving of approximately US$130 billion annually. In a letter to House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee the groups called for inclusion of the ROADS SAFE (Research of Alcohol Detect
April 17, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A broad range of safety, auto, insurance and alcohol industry groups and companies has called on the 2018 US Congress to pass legislation to provide funding for an advanced drunk driving detection research programme. They claim it could lead to more than 8,000 fewer highway fatalities each year and a nationwide economic cost saving of approximately US$130 billion annually.

In a letter to House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee the groups called for inclusion of the ROADS SAFE (Research of Alcohol Detection Systems for Stopping Alcohol-related Fatalities Everywhere) legislation in the safety portion of the surface transportation measure under development by the Committee.

The letter states that the legislation "would authorise the transfer of currently unused safety funds at a rate of $12 million annually for five years to support and expand the ongoing DADSS (Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety) research programme currently being undertaken by the 834 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and leading automakers.

"The goal of this research programme is to develop a publicly-supported technology for vehicles that will instantaneously and passively detect if a driver is drunk (above the legal limit of .08 BAC) and prevent the vehicle from starting. The technology must also be extremely accurate, inexpensive and a non-invasive optional safety feature," the letter adds.

Groups and companies on the letter are 4939 AAA, 4940 Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, 2094 Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, 4941 Allstate Insurance, 4942 American Academy of Pediatrics, 4944 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, 4956 American Automotive Policy Council, 4957 American Highway Users Alliance, 4945 American International Automobile Dealers Association, 4626 American Trucking Association, 4946 Association of Global Automakers, 4947 Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, 4948 Governors Highway Safety Association, 4949 Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 4950 National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers, 4951 National Beer Wholesalers Association, 4952 National Organizations for Youth Safety, 4953 National Safety Council, 4954 Nationwide Insurance, 4955 Safe Kids USA, 2192 State Farm Mutual Insurance Company, The 4958 Century Council and 4959 Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America.

Related Content

  • From coast to coast: US states embrace automated enforcement for safer roads, says Verra Mobility
    September 12, 2023
    The concept of Vision Zero has hit a pothole in the US – but there is hope for a safer future, says Jon Baldwin, executive vice president, government solutions, at Verra Mobility
  • WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff JV to support future interstate highways study
    December 22, 2016
    The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies) has selected a joint venture of Cambridge Systematics and WSP/Parsons Brinckerhoff, to support the future interstate study mandated in Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of 2015 (FAST Act). The FAST Act calls for the National Academies’ Transportation Research Board (TRB) to conduct “... a study on the actions needed to upgrade and restore the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highway
  • Public Private Partnerships to gather pace in the US
    April 29, 2015
    Public Private Partnerships are set to play a big role in transportation funding as Andrew Bardin Williams discovers. The old joke goes that the road from New York to Chicago is paved with potholes. For decades, drivers from New York and New Jersey traveling across Pennsylvania to visit the Midwest have lambasted the Commonwealth’s roadways for their lack of smooth pavement.
  • Turning off red light cameras costs lives, new research shows
    July 29, 2016
    Red light camera programs in 79 large US cities saved nearly 1,300 lives through 2014, researchers from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) have found. Shutting down such programs has cost lives, with the rate of fatal red-light-running crashes shooting up 30 per cent in cities that have turned off cameras. Red-light-running crashes caused 709 deaths in 2014 and an estimated 126,000 injuries. Red light runners account for a minority of the people killed in such crashes. Most of those killed