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Sensor Measures In Fingertips If Driver Is Drunk

Posted by timothy on from the I-prefer-to-think-of-them-as-our-fingers dept.

Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Economic Times reports on the first working prototypes of a new technology that would measure blood alcohol content in a driver's fingertips, using sophisticated touch-based sensors situated in steering wheels and door locks and engineers say that unlike court-ordered breath-analyzer ignition locks, which require a driver to blow into a tube and wait a few seconds for the result, their systems will analyze a driver's blood-alcohol content in less than one second. Anti-drunken driving crusaders believe that almost 9,000 road traffic deaths could be prevented every year if alcohol detection devices were used in all vehicles to prevent alcohol-impaired drivers from driving their vehicles. 'We believe this might turn the car into the cure for the elimination of drunk driving,' says Laura Dean-Mooney, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But not everyone is enamored of the device which could be available to automakers in eight to 10 years. 'For ordinary, law-abiding citizens, it's an invasion of their privacy,' says Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party."

4 of 549 comments (clear)

  1. Its Winter. by icebike · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My fingers get cold. I drive with gloves, at least till the car warms up.
    I imagine drunk drivers would do the same.

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    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  2. Let's just ban Alcohol like we did with Marijuana by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Problem solved. The marijuana/cocaine/etc ban makes it illegal to imbibe these substances. So let's just do the same with alcohol, and all our problems will disappear. No more drunks == no more drunk driving.

    Note:
    I'm being sarcastic.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  3. DUI Hysteria by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For sure, deaths as a result drunk driving are both preventable and tragic.

    But folks, let's have some perspective with the hysteria: 9000 death a year are in fact one of the smaller numbers in the world of preventable deaths.

    The hysteria far outweighs the threat, much like TSA and air travel.

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    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  4. Everybody pays for the stupidity of the few by grimsnaggle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Stuff happens, people die. One of my best friends in high school was killed when his car was hit by a drunk. To me, I'd rather the drunk lost his license rather than my car fitted with an interlock. I don't even drink, why should I have to pay for someone else's irresponsibility?

    Measures like this are a waste of everyone's resources that distract from more serious problems - broken education, declining scientific investment, an uncompetitive economy, etc.