May 24, 2008

Will convicted California DUI - drunk drivers be forced to pass an alcohol breath test before starting their cars?

For more than 20 years, special California DUI breathalyzers -- hard-wired to a car's ignition to prevent the vehicle from starting if alcohol is detected -- have been installed under judicial order in the cars of repeat, or especially egregious, alcohol offenders. But in the last few years, six states have passed laws that require the devices, called ignition interlocks, in the cars of everyone convicted of California DUI - driving under the influence.

California is considering making interlocks mandatory for all California DUI offenders. A bill could pass the state Assembly next week. And a group of automakers has launched a major project with the federal government to develop advanced technologies that could someday make alcohol detectors a standard feature in all cars.

Advocates of interlocks, particularly Mothers Against Drunk Driving, say the devices could reduce the nation's estimated 17,000 annual alcohol-related automotive fatalities, and thereby ease the burden that California DUI drunk driving places on the nation's criminal justice system.

Critics, led by the American Beverage Institute and lawyers specializing in California DUI defense, contend that ignition interlocks aren't as effective as claimed and are a burdensome invasion of privacy.

This month, the beverage institute ran full-page ads in USA Today and the New York Times showing mug shots of celebrities convicted of drunk driving, including Lindsay Lohan and Kiefer Sutherland, saying that interlocks should be used only for "hard-core drunk drivers."

Her group worries that laws requiring the devices for all convicted California DUI drunk drivers would discourage consumers from having a drink at dinner, costing the restaurant industry untold sums of money.

The Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, a five-year, $10-million project funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and automakers including Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Corp., said the research could very well mean alcohol detectors will become a standard option in every car.

No country has a universal ignition interlock mandate, and Sweden, the only one to attempt such a law, seems unlikely to get permission from the European Union.

Instead, as-yet-undeveloped technologies, which could use retina scans or skin spectrometry, would be the kind of thing carmakers install as a non-mandated safety feature, like side air bags, and would be unnoticeable to the driver. However, once such a device is installed, its use probably would not be optional.

In the past, the public has been resistant to laws that require some safety equipment. In 1973, NHTSA promulgated a rule requiring the use of devices that would prevent cars from starting if the driver's seat belt was not engaged. It was revoked amid public protest.

Last year Nissan Motor Co. revealed a concept car that incorporated an arrangement of alcohol sensors, including one built into the gearshift.

At the moment, that's far from the case. As of August, there were 134,000 ignition interlocks employed in 45 states, a number that's grown substantially since 2005, when New Mexico passed the first law mandating interlocks for first offenders.

The devices, manufactured by fewer than a dozen companies, are installed at the user's expense and must be breathed into before the car can start.

The user leases the device for a monthly fee, typically about $65, and must take it to a technician every two months to get it recalibrated. The blood-alcohol sensitivity is generally set around 0.03%. That's well below the legal limit of 0.08%; convicted drunk drivers are prohibited from driving with any alcohol in their blood.

If users don't come in for device calibration, their car will eventually cease to start, even if they blow into the machine stone sober, said Corey Hickok, owner of ACS Interlock, a Santa Ana business that services the interlocks for about 300 customers every two months. And newer generations of interlocks prevent boozing on the road (or keeping the car idling in a bar parking lot) by requiring California DUI probationers to blow into the device at random times.

Smart Start Inc., which leases 30,000 interlock devices at a time, had a new model that takes pictures of the driver breathing into the machine, saving the information on a chip, to prevent cheating. He estimates that the number of interlocks in the country could grow to 750,000 should all 50 states adopt laws requiring them for all DUI offenders.

California's proposed California DUI law, which unanimously passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Thursday, is aimed at reducing the 1,300 alcohol-related fatalities on the state's roads each year. It's considered likely to pass the full chamber next week.

Joshua Dale, executive director of the California DUI Lawyers Association, points out the statistics are far from clear on whether laws that require interlocks for first time California DUI offenders actually reduce fatalities. "We're probably going to see that cellphones cause more deaths than drunk drivers," the prominent California DUI lawyer maintains.

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