Josh is right about the gloves. We’d have to be more clever with the tech. Good catch. As I explained above, we need something that monitors the situation every second and does not allow a drunk driver to operate the vehicle, period.

“I am pretty sure that a car could be equipped with “smart material” on the steering wheel which could analyze the alcohol in a driver’s blood and not allow the car to run if it exceeded a certain amount.”

I’m not sure what to think of your suggestion. I guess from a policy perspective, we could charge everyone with a DIU another 1000 bucks and have a lot of money to fund public transportation. I would couple that with ever stricter enforcement, and educational campaigns.

As an aside, in some cases there is need for greater prosecutorial discretion. I talked to one prosecutor from cook county who told me about a guy who dropped his car off at an Osco, had his buddies drive him to a Cubs game, got drunk as shit at the Cubs game, his buddies dropped him at his car, he got in, never started the car, sat in the parking lot, threw the keys in the passenger seat, and tried to sleep it off. A cop knocked on his window, under IL law he said you just have to be in control of the car, and there is precedent that sitting with the keys next to you is control. This prosecutor told me that he charged the guy with a DUI. Poor bastard did exactly what he should have in that situation. I guess if he had abandoned personal safety and passed out by a tree with his keys in his pocket he would have been fine. I gave the prosecutor quite a bit of hell over it. I think a little common sense in law enforcement goes a long way.

However, the driving tech is possible. There is now tech in some mercedes vehicles that alerts drivers who are showing the driving patterns of someone who is starting to fall asleep.

^^ this is the solution. Specifically the steering wheel part.

They’re not. The majority of DUI arrests and traffic fatalities are not of suburban kids like your friends out on a lark. The majority are alcoholics. Such individuals cannot be helped with a “rides” program because they see nothing whatsoever wrong with driving while drunk. As a matter of fact, I imagine a lot of them think it’s a great deal of fun to play “chicken” with oncoming cars, drive their Mercury into the front of the bar that they got kicked out of, or bounce their car against the curb repeatedly. (One of these long-term DUI people took her car onto the expressway north of Champaign in an apparent suicide attempt over the holidays and killed a girl your age.)

Let me give you an example of how deep in denial these folks are. The Chicago police department set up a sting operation in the parking lot of traffic court. They would follow drivers who had just lost their license for DUI (some for the second or third time) back to their cars in the parking lot and arrest them when they drove off.

In other words, your plan won’t reduce the number of drunk drivers on the road significantly. We’ve already got “implied consent” in Illinois–if you’re in an accident, you either take a Breathalyzer test or give up your license. In my opinion, the only legal thing that could decrease drunk driving would be to again reduce the alcohol limit, which is probably futile, since those that are causing the majority of the damage are already over the legal limit. (In other words, reducing the limit even more would not be particularly effective and would just make people feel better about things.)

Technologically, you could make the cars smart enough (in a variety of ways) that they simply would not allow a drunk driver to operate them. I believe that there are already ones where your non-drunk reaction time or short-term memory are needed to open your car door. These are, of course, useless if a person’s got a less-drunk friend. I am pretty sure that a car could be equipped with “smart material” on the steering wheel which could analyze the alcohol in a driver’s blood and not allow the car to run if it exceeded a certain amount. (Testing for blood alcohol is pretty low-tech nowadays.)

As long as there’s drunks, you’re going to have fatalities. The things that the government have done so far in Illinois have helped–it’s a lot safer on the roads now than it was thirty years ago. I question whether or not further social or legal intervention can do much more, however.