Published on April 4th, 2012 | by Steven Hodson
0In The Near Future We Could See Alcohol-Testing In Cars
We’ve had some sort of alcohol testing in cars before this but they were generally stand alone pieces of hardware wired in to the car that were mandated by the court if you were ever charged with drunk driving. This new idea however goes one step further and makes it an intregal part of the car that could hit the market within the next decade or so.
According to Wall Street Journal manufacturers have been working with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to bring the technology to market, but not everyone thinks that this is a good idea.
One group, representing Washington D.C. restaurants, argues that caution over liability around drink-driving accidents may prompt manufacturers to set lower limits to the locks than legally mandated. Since alcohol can take some time to enter the bloodstream, they argue, car companies or those behind the scanning systems themselves may be tempted to configure the blood alcohol limit below 0.08-percent, the current legal threshold in every US state.
via SlashGear
The NHTSA claims that it isn’t looking to make this type of technology mandatory but rather leaving it up to the individual manufacturers.