A bill is currently awaiting President Biden’s signature, which has a major focus on increasing the EV population.
But that's not the only automotive thing hiding in this massive piece of legislation. As Washington Post spotted, the bill also aims to reduce drunk driving with “advanced impaired driving technology.”
According to section 24220 of the bill, “alcohol-impaired driving fatalities represent approximately 1/3 of all highway fatalities in the United States each year.” In 2019 alone, there were 10,142 highway fatalities nvolving drivers with a blood alcohol concentration level of .08 or higher.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says advanced drunk and impaired driving technology can prevent more than 9,400 fatalities each year. The bill includes “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles.”
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These systems can either passively monitor the performance of a driver to determine whether they may be impaired, or it can passively detect whether their blood alcohol concentration is too high. If an impaired driver is detected, the system needs to prevent or limit the operation of the vehicle.
The bill goes on to say that these systems must be fully operational within three years, and carmakers will then have up to three years to comply. These dates aren't set in stone though, and even describes a scenario where the changes won't be implemented for 10 years.
The bill is relatively open ended, and it leaves implementation up to the imagination of the automakers. Over the years, we've seen technology used to detect drunk drivers including everything from eye monitoring cameras to sensors integrated into the steering wheel.
Only time will tell what will actually come out of this bill.