There was an article in the Washington Post about technology being developed to passively detect alcohol consumption, to be installed in all new vehicles.
Any system that can stop drunk driving before it happens is worth discussing, both pros and cons. Any such technology always comes down to a public safety vs. civil liberties trade-off. Is everyone a suspect without any due process?There are certainly huge questions to be explored about a system like this.
- Will they be required or optional?
- Who will pay for these systems? How about ongoing maintenance?
- What is the threshold for accuracy?
- How high a BAC will trigger the system?
- If a positive reading is detected, what happens with the data?
- Is it reported to law enforcement?
And the actual technology and methodology matters greatly. There are known problems with airborne detection of alcohol, since it doesn’t indicate how much alcohol is actually in the person’s system. That’s why breath tests are only accurate if the alcohol is detected in deep lung alveoli, indicating that the alcohol is in the bloodstream, and not just in the air.
Technologies similar to alcohol detecting SCRAM bracelets, that detect alcohol through skin persperiation might be more promising, but of course, the details matter hugely.
Everyone is against drunk driving, and we all support efforts to prevent it. But many questions need to be answered before this technology should be imposed on the public.
About David Matson