We'd need a dashboard indicator to indicate that it refused to start due to alcohol. After all, it might just be broken down independent of the driver's alcoholic state at that point.
I'd rather just replace the ignition system with a short driving game that you have to complete to start the car
I've heard there are cars with a breath analyzer connected to the ignition. A driving game would hopefully pick up more than alcohol, so I like that idea. Unfortunately, I suspect many drunk drivers will just do what they do with the current systems and have their sober girlfriend pass the test for them.
This. Why shouldn't driver assist be able to tell when the actual driver is drunk/tired/dangerously incompetent and pull over. It could even call their emergency contact or a taxi and disable the car.
Also, what if I'm the designated driver and I'm taking 3 of my drunk friends home. How likely would this system be to give a false positive and now the responsible person's car won't start until you get a bunch of drunks out of the car and air it out.
That option was tried: a company developed a safety system on top of a car’s ignition. To start, the driver had to blow into an alcohol test. It was meant for parents’ letting their teenagers drive their car and court-mandates.
The system was rapidly scraped when people realise someone else could easily blow in.
The problem is not drunk drivers but incapacitated drivers, whether due to alcohol, drugs, lack of sleep, distractions (mobile phones), etc.
The fix is not arbitrary alcohol blood levels, or extending the "War on Drugs", but with standardized, enforced, in-vehicle continuous testing that ensures that the driver is awake, responsive, and in control of the vehicle.
That is something where R&D in AI/ML/software to analyze and detect incapacity could/should be directed.
It can be entirely on/in-vehicle, with access to the data only available to law enforcement (and, perhaps, insurance companies), if and when it is needed to determine liability (not as a general "carte blanche" for the data), in the same way that aircraft black boxes are only analyzed for investigation after an incident.
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