NTSB: Use ignition locks for all drunken drivers

JOAN LOWY

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Every state should require con­victed drunken dri­vers, includ­ing first-time offend­ers, to use devices that pre­vent them from start­ing a car’s engine if their breath tests pos­i­tive for alco­hol, the National Trans­porta­tion Safety Board said Tuesday.

The igni­tion inter­lock devices — already required for all con­victed drunken dri­vers in 17 states — are cur­rently the best avail­able solu­tion to reduc­ing drunken dri­ving deaths, which account for about a third of the nation’s more than 32,000 traf­fic deaths a year, the board said.

Dri­vers breathe into breath­a­lyz­ers mounted on the vehicle’s dash­board. If their breath-alcohol con­cen­tra­tion is greater than the device’s pro­grammed limit — usu­ally a blood alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion of .02 per­cent or .04 per­cent — then the engine won’t start.

The board also urged the National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tion to speed up its research effort with automak­ers to develop sys­tems that can deter­mine a driver’s blood alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion using infrared light when the dri­ver presses an igni­tion but­ton. The vehi­cle won’t start if the alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion is too high.

The tech­nol­ogy, which is some­times breath-based rather than touch-activated, is already in use in some work­place drug-testing pro­grams. If the tech­nol­ogy were incor­po­rated into all new vehi­cles, even­tu­ally all dri­vers would be alcohol-tested before dri­ving. That could poten­tially pre­vent an esti­mated 7,000 drunken-driving deaths a year, the board said.

The five-member board made the unan­i­mous rec­om­men­da­tions after review­ing evi­dence that an aver­age of 360 peo­ple a year are killed when dri­vers turn the wrong way into the face of oncom­ing traf­fic on high-speed highways.

The board’s study ana­lyzed data from 1,566 crashes from 2004 to 2009, as well as nine wrong-way col­li­sions NTSB directly inves­ti­gated. In 59 per­cent of the acci­dents, wrong-way dri­vers had blood alco­hol lev­els more than twice the legal limit, researchers said. In another 10 per­cent of the crashes, dri­vers had alco­hol lev­els between .08 and .14. The limit in most instances is .08.

In just the past week, 11 peo­ple were killed and 9 seri­ously injured in wrong-way dri­ving acci­dents in eight states, the board was told.

“Wrong-way crashes shat­ter lives and fam­i­lies,” said NTSB Chair­man Deb­o­rah Hers­man, call­ing the report and the rec­om­men­da­tions a “mile­stone” for the board. The tech­nolo­gies hold “great promise to be a game changer in high­way safety,” she said.

The board’s rec­om­men­da­tions are likely to be strongly opposed by the alco­hol indus­try. The Amer­i­can Bev­er­age Insti­tute, which rep­re­sents about 8,000 chain restau­rants in the U.S., said manda­tory igni­tion inter­lock devices should be reserved for “hard­core” drunken dri­vers and it opposes the new tech­nol­ogy that gov­ern­ment and indus­try are researching.

First-time drunk dri­vers with blood alco­hol lev­els that are less than dou­ble the legal limit should be treated dif­fer­ently than dri­vers with higher alco­hol lev­els and repeat offend­ers, Sarah Long­well, the institute’s man­ag­ing direc­tor, said.

“You don’t pun­ish some­body going five miles over the speed limit the same way you do some­body going 50 miles over the speed limit,” she said.

Also, the devel­op­ing tech­nol­ogy would effec­tively pre­vent any one with rel­a­tively small amounts of alco­hol in their blood from dri­ving, Long­well said.

“This would elim­i­nate people’s abil­ity to have a glass of wine with din­ner or to have a beer at a ball­game and then drive home,” she said.

Older dri­vers also appear to be part of the wrong-way dri­ving prob­lem, researchers said. Dri­vers over age 70 were over­rep­re­sented in the acci­dents reviewed in the study, account­ing for 15 per­cent of the wrong-way dri­vers com­pared with only 3 per­cent of the right-way dri­vers they col­lided with, researchers said.

Wrong-way dri­ving crashes on inter­states, express­ways and other high-speed high­ways are espe­cially deadly because over 80 per­cent involve head-on col­li­sions in which vehi­cles close in on each other very rapidly, they said. A study in Michi­gan ear­lier this year found that 22 per­cent of wrong-way col­li­sions were fatal, com­pared with 0.3 per­cent for all high­way acci­dents over the same period.

Often the chain of events begins with dri­vers enter­ing an exit ramp in the wrong direc­tion, mak­ing a U-turn on the main­line of a high­way or using an emer­gency turn­around through a median, inves­ti­ga­tors said.

Most wrong-way crashes — includ­ing seven of the nine acci­dents directly inves­ti­gated by NTSB — take place in the fast lane of the high­way, inves­ti­ga­tors said. The acci­dents also tend to hap­pen at night and on week­ends, the study found.

Reduc­ing drunken dri­ving is per­haps the most obvi­ous way to reduce wrong-way dri­ving fatal­i­ties and injuries. The board hosted a forum ear­lier this year on the prob­lem of dri­vers impaired by alco­hol and drugs.

Alcohol-impaired crashes over­all accounted for nearly 31 per­cent motor vehi­cle fatal­i­ties 2010. And, that per­cent­age has remained stuck between 30 and 32 per­cent of over­all high­way fatal­i­ties since 1995, board mem­bers said.

Safety advo­cates have been lob­by­ing states to pass more laws requir­ing igni­tion inter­lock devices for first-time offend­ers. Accord­ing to the Gov­er­nors High­way Safety Asso­ci­a­tion, states that already have such laws on the books are: Alaska, Ari­zona, Arkansas, Col­orado, Con­necti­cut, Hawaii, Illi­nois, Kansas, Louisiana, Mis­souri, Nebraska, New Mex­ico, New York, Ore­gon, Utah, Vir­ginia and Wash­ing­ton. Missouri’s law does take effect until next fall. Also, four Cal­i­for­nia coun­ties — includ­ing Los Ange­les — have igni­tion inter­lock laws.

“The laws may vary some, but the com­mon thread is that they are for all first time offend­ers,” Jonathan Adkins, deputy exec­u­tive direc­tor of the asso­ci­a­tion, said.

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