Could This New Technology Help Stop Drunk Drivers?

Drunk drivers are a danger to everyone on the road, from other motorists to pedestrians to passengers. While a Janesville auto accident lawyer can help victims of drunk driving collisions to obtain compensation after an accident, nothing can bring back your health if a drunk driver hurts you.

Unfortunately, many drunk drivers are not caught when they are driving impaired, which means they continue to stay on the roads and often repeat their bad behavior. In fact, Mothers Against Drunk Driving indicates that by the time a drunk driver is caught and arrested, he or she has already driven while impaired at least 80 times before.

One reason drunk drivers are not always identified is because it can be difficult to tell who in their car is actually impaired, and police cannot pull someone over or administer a sobriety test unless there is reason to believe the motorist is intoxicated. Now, however, the Huffington Post indicates that a new technology may help to solve this problem and allow more intoxicated drivers to be identified.

New Technology Could Help to Reduce Drunk Driving

The promising new technology is being described as “a drunk driver’s worst nightmare.” It is being developed by Polish scientists and involves the use of a laser-based device that is able to detect alcohol vapor in a passing car.

Alcohol vapor is exhaled by a person who has been drinking. As the laser beam passes through the alcohol vapor, subtle changes occur in the beam of light. The device being developed by scientists from the Military University of Technology in Warsaw can detect these subtle changes.

The device is in the early stages of development but has already been successfully tested. When the laser was pointed at a passing car from up to 20 meters away, alcohol vapor inside of the car was detected.

Once the technology is refined, researchers hope that police can use it in a similar way as radar guns are currently used to catch people who are speeding. The device could be pointed at passing traffic and could alert law enforcement when alcohol vapors are filling the vehicle.  The device could also be equipped with a camera so it could take and send a photo of a suspected drunk driver’s car to nearby law enforcement agents.

Although this could make a big difference in helping police to pinpoint people who may be driving impaired, the technology does have some limitations. For one thing, it could potentially alert police to cars in which the driver is sober but a passenger has been drinking and is exhaling alcohol vapor. Drivers could also keep the windows open or put solar screens on side windows that would cause the device not to work correctly. However, these countermeasures could be easily detected by law enforcement and alert them that something may be wrong.

If police are able to catch more intoxicated motorists, hopefully fewer drunk driving collisions will occur. Those who are victims should pursue a damage claim with the help of Janesville auto accident lawyer Steve Caya at Nowlan & Mouat LLP, so they are not left facing uncompensated losses when a drunk driver causes a crash.