Illinois Car and Truck Accident Lawyer Blog

The New York Times’ blog, Wheels, discusses a recent campaign to “stop drunken driving by putting some form of alcohol interlock in every new car” (Wald, 5/19). The Alliance of Automobile Manufactures suggested that Congress budget for “spending $30 million a year on developing devices that would sense alcohol in a driver.”

The problem with the current means of regulating drunk drivers is that drivers without a prior history of drunk driving cause many accidents. These drivers would not have interlocks in their cars because current protocol calls for installation of such devices only when the driver has previous, and often multiple offenses.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety “estimated that in 2007, if anyone with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher could have been prevented from starting a vehicle, almost 9,000 lives would have been saved.” In New Mexico, for example, interlocks are installed after a first drunk driving conviction. Alcohol related accidents in the state are down 30 percent.

To combat heavy criticism, proponents stated, “no one is proposing a breathalyzer in every car,” and offered several other less intrusive means of detecting a driver’s blood alcohol level such as bouncing near-infra-red wavelength light off the driver’s skin, measuring the sweat on the driver’s skin, or analyzing eye movements.

Although drunken driving is a clear cause of many accidents and fatalities annually, I understand that whatever method is chosen to regulate driving while intoxicated needs to be both cost effective and efficient. As a personal injury lawyer in Chicago, I support further researching the many alternatives for reducing alcohol related crashes.