DOT Announces Funding for Technology to End Drunk Driving
The agency is urging the driving public to "drive sober or get pulled over."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has kicked off its Driver Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign and also announced it is attempting to end drunk driving in the United States using Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS). "Each year, too many lives are lost to drunk driving, particularly around the holiday season. Now we have an opportunity to prevent future drunk driving tragedies by taking action today," said U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. "We want everyone to be safe this holiday season, which is why we're urging the public to make the right choice, follow the law, and drive sober."
Advertisements under the Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign will run throughout the country until Jan. 1. NHTSA has also developed a virtual experience called Last Call 360 that brings a virtual bar to life, allowing users to experience the consequences of drinking and driving with photospheres, cinemagraphs, videos, and games.
"Drunk driving crashes are no accident – they are 100 percent preventable. They all connect back to human choices and errors, but we're not stopping there," said NHTSA Administrator Dr. Mark Rosekind. "With the help of our safety partners, we're looking at a technological path forward to create a world where there is no more drunk driving."
Citing more than 10,000 drunk driving deaths nationwide each year, federal and Virginia state officials announced $5.1 million in funding to help further develop and deploy DADSS, technology that allows vehicles to passively detect when a driver's BAC is at or above .08 the legal limit, preventing them from starting the vehicle.