Toyota Creating In-Vehicle Alcohol Detection System

srizah writes "Toyota is developing an Alcohol Detection System that can detect drunken drivers and would immobilize the car when it detects excessive alcohol consumption. From the article: 'Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver's bloodstream, according to a report carried by the mass-circulation daily, Asahi Shimbun. The system could also kick in if the sensors detect abnormal steering, or if a special camera shows that the driver's pupils are not in focus. The car is then slowed to a halt, the report said.'"

Dangerous

[ozric99]

Refusing to start the car is one thing, and perfectly acceptable, but taking control away from the driver is a big no no under any circumstance.

Alcohol on hands

[Anonymous Coward]

Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver's bloodstream

Suppose that I work in a bar and there's alcohol on my hands because I just spent the last eight hours wiping down tables. What then?

Killing the car while diving can be just as bad

[Joe The Dragon]

If The car is slowed to a halt on a high speed road then you can get rear ended.

Also abnormal steering can come form trying to get a round a road hazard.

Re:Dangerous

[gsn]

Refusing to start the car is one thing, and perfectly acceptable, but taking control away from the driver is a big no no under any circumstance.

I'd agree that refusal to start the car is probably a good idea - possible false positives by the drunk idiot in shotgun throwing up notwithstanding. There are however several drivers I know (and unfortunately been driven by) who need control taken away from them when sober to begin with. Theres a lot of people out there who ought not be be given driving licenses. Pretty much every time I'm on the interstate I see some car crash - read about it the next day and chances are are its DUI. I'm fine with control being taken away because it seems we are getting much better at cars that can drive themselves.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/new s/news.html?in_article_id=393401&in_page_id=1770 [dailymail.co.uk]

Also there are tons of things you could do if you weren't actually driving the car and it would be brilliant for long road trips.

Re:Imagine if this malnfunctioned on the freeway

[Not_Wiggins]

False positives? What about false negatives?

What would the liability be when the drunk kills another because "if I was too drunk to drive, why did my car start?"

Legal issues

[FF3451]

Aside from the obvious issue of the system giving false positives and causing an accident, Toyota could be putting themselves in a slippery slope when it comes to possible legal issues. What they are technically doing is involving themselves in the "enforcement" of the drink-driving laws - surely meaning that one day when their system fails to prevent a heavily inebriated person from driving one of their vehicles and subsequently being involved in a collision, then thanks to our out-of-control blame culture they would be wide open to a barrage of litigation, regardless of where the true blame should be placed?

Both ineffective and dumb

[Shihar]

Over coming the alcohol sensor is a simple matter of putting on a pair of gloves. Any drunk who is sober enough to get his key in the ignition is also going to be sober enough to know he can defeat his car with a pair of gloves.

As far as the 'features' of this car, I don't want them. I can prevent myself from drive drunk without my cars help, thank you very much. The last thing in the world do I want three separate systems to disable my car. The alcohol sensor could be triggered by other sources of alcohol. More scary, the erratic driving and the lack of pupil focusing could be triggered by poor pattern recognition. The last thing in the world I want is for the car to decide is that I am not focusing enough due to a glitch and try and slow me down on in the middle of a Boston highway during heavy traffic chugging along at 70 mph.

If Toyota wants put in a safety feature that I would actually want, give me a system to warn me that I am falling asleep THAT I CAN TURN OFF. I don't mind my car warning me that my driving is looking funny or that it seems like I am not focused, but I want to be able to disable the warning should it become clear that there is a glitch. The last thing in the world I want is for it to take control away from me. I would rather veer off the road and hit a treat then come to a dead stop in the middle of a highway. Trees only hit you ounce.

Add GPS, auto-dialer, electric shock, etc.

[PatPending]

Heck, let's "Take It To The Next Level" (TM) and include a GPS receiver; an auto-dialer; city/highway db. When the "alarm" goes off, have the vehicle auto-dial 911; a synthesized voice announces (among other things) the GPS coordinates, along with cross streets (city) or mile-post number (highway). If the driver attempts to thwart the system, the vehicle will administer electric shocks (with increasing intensity).

Patent pending.

Control-freak magnet

[russotto]

The problem with this technology isn't any of the (many) practical problems it entails. The problem is it just begs to be made mandatory by governments. Very few people would want to put this system in a car which they drive; after all, most of them figure they don't drive drunk anyway so why pay for it, and the drunks sure as heck don't want it. Some people would want it in cars they bought for their teen-aged children but that's a fairly small niche market. Rental companies might want it but probably wouldn't want to pay for it unless it was somehow mandated -- particularly since it might cause legitimate renters to shy away fearing those false positives. So here's a technology which "everyone" (which is to say journalists, car manufacturers, politicians, and the safety lobby) sees will do good, but will not be accepted by the public on an individual level. Legislation is sure to follow.

On a philosophical level, I think it's antithetical to freedom for technology to be required to prevent people from deliberately doing wrong. The choice to break the law should be up to the individual. Consider if the Montgomery buses had had skin-albedometers and some odd contraption to move Rosa Parks where she "belonged" -- you can't have civil disobedience if disobedience is impossible. Consider if printing presses were somehow rigged to refuse to print the Pentagon Papers or anything else the government thought was illegal to print. If cars had a 55mph speed governor during the years of the US national maximum speed limit, would that law have ever been repealed? Granted, these are arguments against mandating the technology, not against its development, but for the reasons I stated above, this technology is pretty much a control-freak magnet.

Re:Dangerous

[Zocalo]

If you get rear-ended because your engine has been cutoff because the car decided that you were DUI and you are drifting to a halt that's not your fault; it's that of the person who rear-ended you. You'll probably still get prosecuted for DUI, but the driver that hit you also could be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention as well. If you are swerving all over the road, don't have any lights on at night, or get into a "he-said, she-said" situation with no witnesses to back you up then you're likely going to be saddled with all the blame though.

Re:Imagine if this malnfunctioned on the freeway

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words, BMW iDrive. Just ask my mother-in-law how fun it is to be going down the steep grade on I8 out of Phoenix to the coast and have iDrive collision avoidance decide to fuck up. VERY SCARY! It hit the breaks at the same time the all the warning lights went off and force her to the side of the road with a message that the system had failed. Restart and away she went!

Re:FUCK YOU, spin-master.

[Nephilium]

You want the figures... here's an analysis of the numbers from the NHTSA themselves... [getmadd.com]

If you can prove the claim, here's $20,000 [getmadd.com] for you...

And... well... you can't cry if I link [dot.gov] the NHTSA's actual numbers, can you? Of course, pay special attention to the passenger, rider, and NON-OCCUPANT figures... that means that the driver had no alcohol in his system, but someone in the car did...

And please note the difference between alcohol-related, and BAC .08+. Also, please do a little look to see what .08 BAC does to reflexes... and how little it takes to get there.

Also... look into the actual statements of MADD, and look what they're fighting for... and look into a nobody named Candy Lightner, and check into her current job, and why she is currently doing it.

Or look into the GAO's research to the NHTSA's claims...

I can only lead you to the information, I can't make you read them, nor can I make you believe in them.

Nephilium... currently enjoying a tasty barleywine... [ratebeer.com]

Sometimes too much drink is barely enough. -- Mark Twain, American novelist

Re:Imagine if this malnfunctioned on the freeway

[1u3hr]

What if I'm on the freeway and the car turns itself off?

Do you really think they'd make it work like that? You'd probably have a series of alarms that gradually got more intrusive, finally a speed governor kicking in that gradually brought you to a stop. But it probably isn't a good idea to be drinking while you're driving on the freeway anyway.

Re:Imagine if this malnfunctioned on the freeway

[shaitand]

"I've never drank a drop of alcohol in my life, and never will, so I'd gladly see this feature in every car sold. Mandatory is fine with me."

So what you are saying is that you are entirely ignorant of the topic. You are likely the only person on the forum that has no context to place any of their reasoning on because you have no experience to give you that context. A single drink of alcohol is not a substantial enough amount to make an average adult male feel any effect. As any adult male who has experienced a drink could tell you. I am not talking bout being 'buzzed' or 'drunk', a single drink is not enough to be able to even tell that you have drank any without the aftertaste. A single drink would put an average male over the legal limit. If at a business meeting I had a single drink to avoid offending my boss by refusing his offer, would my car stop operating? I would have a serious problem with that.

"Add up all of those what ifs, and you'll still come up WAY short of the 17,000 people killed each year by drunk drivers."

There aren't 17,000 people killed each year by drunk drivers. There aren't even 17,000 people who died to make up that figure. At least 15% of that 17,000 were added to make up for the ones that the stats missed. As someone else already pointed out, you can find plenty of information about other nonsense that goes into those figures here:

http://www.drunkard.com/issues/08_02/08_02_fightin g_madd.htm [drunkard.com]

Personally I doubt drunk drivers are responsible for nearly as many accidents as senior citizens. Here in Florida we have the gray panthers lobbying and stopping legislation go in place that would require grandma to show quick response times to keep her license. Don't get me wrong, grandma is almost never in an accident. She will blissfully drive through an intersection and go on her way without seeing the collision that resulted from her action. Traffic accidents are usually caused by someone careless, that doesn't mean the careless one is the one who had the accident.

I am against anyone modifying my car, computer, stereo, TV, clock, lights, or any other tool I own or purchase in a way that removes control from me. If this something is taking control from me because that will allow the tool to perform its function in some improved way, I might be willing to give on this point with little grumbling. But we are talking about something that removes control from the drivers of the car and does so for reasons that have NOTHING to do with improving the operation of the vehicle.

P.S. Choosing not to be drunk is something to be proud of. Willfully choosing ignorance is the definition of stupidity.

Really...

[Belial6]

Really, your right. A much better solution would be to start flashing every light in the car. Other drivers, pedestrians, and cops would all immediately be able to identify you as a drunk driver, and take appropriate action. If it turned out to be a false positive, the other drivers and pedestrians would only be inconvenienced slightly, and the cops would pull you over, test your blood alcohol, and either arrest you, or let you go.

Re:Imagine if this malnfunctioned on the freeway

[ultranova]

I am all for the car blaring warnings that you are driving funny or intoxicated. I am utterly against the car deciding that the middle of a highway is a good place to stop because its pattern recognition system has failed or my intoxicated passenger gets some alcohol laced fluid on my steering wheel or hands.

Maybe you shouldn't be blasting down a busy Boston highway with a drunk who insist on grabbing the steering wheel sitting next to you ?-)

But anyway, I admit being somewhat uneasy about some system deciding to stop the car in the middle of the road. Maybe it should just call the cops instead ? It's not like it's difficult to arrange: just couple a voice synthesizer with a GPS navigator, a map program and a mobile phone, and the cops get a call like:

"Hi, I'm the car owned by Joe Smith, registry entry xxx-xxxx. I'm currently being driven by someone I suspect is drunk. My coordinates are nn.nn, which means map location xxxx, and I'm travelling to $COMPASS_DIRECTION. Please stop me before someone gets killed."

Repeat that every five minutes, with interval dropped to one minute afte three calls to give the cops an incentive to investigate.

Oh, and stop punishing drunk drivers with a slap on the wrist. They endanger the lives of everyone on the street, and should be treated the same as the guy shooting around randomly with a shotgun in the middle of a street: arrest them and keep them locked up for at least a few months, preferably a few years. And confiscate their fucking car and revoce their drivers license permanently, since they obviously can't be trusted with them. I'm getting so bloody tired of reading in news how some drunk asshole ran the red light, killed a schoolgirl, and got away with a small fine.

Re:Dangerous

[FLEB]

What if the "gentle stop" leaves you on the left side of a blind curve on a multilane city freeway? It sounds like an edge case, but I know of a number of places where you would *not* want to break down-- if you have enough room to get off to the side, you still may end up stranded on the wrong side of an enclosed freeway. Let's see how much mayhem a drunk stumbler can do in the middle of a quickly-moving Interstate.