Why don't all new cars have breathalysers?

[David]

This is something I've thought about for a long time. It seems strange to me that there has never been a serious attempt to get car manufacturers to include breathalysers in cars.

Given that many people who drink-drive either think that they're okay or are unsure and willing to take the risk, such a policy would surely cut drink-driving rates (and associated deaths and injuries) substantially. I can speak from experience here: I've never been caught drink-driving, but there have been a number of times when I wasn't 100% sure I was under the limit. I don't know what 0.05 feels like. In all of those instances, I would have used a breathalyser if I'd had one on me, to be on the safe side. I suspect many people would do exactly the same thing.

It's all very well to say "if in doubt, don't drive", and it's good advice to follow. But in the real world, people take risks all the time. We've all had the "are you sure you're ok to drive?" conversation, and I'm sure most of us have gone ahead if we thought we were okay. Having an actual breathalyser would take chance out of the equation.

Those who argue against it point to the cost of the devices. It's true that they are expensive – interlocks cost about $2000 to install each. But an interlock is a much more sophisticated piece of equipment than an ordinary police breathalyser, as it connects to the engine and disables it if the reading is above 0.05; also, most of the cost is related to monthly servicing, not installation.

I'm not proposing that at all. We do not need mandatory interlocks; all we need is a simple device that gives a reading if people choose to use it. That can surely be integrated into the cost of the car, and given that people spend $15-20,000 on these things at the very least, another few hundred is hardly going to make that much of a difference. The cost could also be partially or wholly government subsidised. It needn't necessarily even apply to new cars; it could be installed by a mechanic in every car when you do your roadworthy.

It'd be interesting to see some modelling on how much all this would cost, but I can't imagine it would be more than, say, a new railway station. The TAC already spend millions on advertising specifically related to drink-driving each year, and that's just in Victoria. Why not spend some of that money on directly fixing the problem?

What are your thoughts?

[3.14159]

Have you been drinking?

[David]

No, unfortunately!

[stui magpie]

No.

Basically if you're not sure either don't drive or buy a personal one if you're worried about it. eg, http://www.alcolimit.com.au/#!all-personal-breathalysers/c94p

Fitting them to cars as standard could open up privacy issues. Anyway, to be honest, drug drivers are a bigger issue on the road at the moment than drink drivers.

[David]

Privacy issues? Like what?

Drug-driving is a problem too, but 1) in most cases, with drugs, you don't need a breathalyser to tell you you shouldn't be on the road and 2) this proposal wouldn't fix every road safety problem anyway. But it would go a long way to reducing drink-driving rates, and surely that's a good thing?

[stui magpie]

A mandatory breathalyzer would be conected to the cars computer and data would be downloaded every time you took the car in for a service on what your alcohol usage was when driving. If this data exists you can bet lobby groups will try to get access to it, hence the privacy issues.

As far as it going a long way to reducing drink driving rates, I'm not sure. You're allowed to drive after drinking alcohol, up to a prescribed limit. Unless it's an interlock device I don't see it having much of an impact. Plenty of places still have 0.08 as the legal limit so if you blow 0.06 and get behind the wheel you're arguably at little higher risk than someone at 0.045 of having an accident, just of being fined if picked up.

[HAL]

How far up?

[stui magpie]

About 22 inches straight up your jacksie tin arse.

And re the drug driving, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-23/drug-drivers-exceed-rate-drink-drivers-research/6342102

Obviously there's a hell of a lot of people who DON'T know they shouldn't be on the road after using drugs.

[HAL]

Oh yeah, we were talking about 22 inches up your jacksie tin arse .

[David]

[stui magpie]

If it was a mandatory fit it would be connected to the car computer. That's a given.

As far as privacy goes, I'm not a big believer but when insurance companies get their hands on that data there goes the premiums so I object.

[David]

^ I'm not entirely sure why. Why couldn't it be freestanding? Considering that much of the debate would be over the cost of implementation, I would have thought there'd be a strong argument for not making the device more complicated than it needs to be. Having a backlog of data, for instance, is clearly unnecessary for the purposes of the exercise and would increase the cost substantially.

[stui magpie]

Don't know much about cars?

Everything electronic in a car these days is connected to the main computer. The breathalyser needs frequent calibration which would form part of the service and it would only be freestanding if it was an aftermarket fit. factory fit it would be integrated.

[David]

Yeah, my limited knowledge of cars extends up to late '90s models. I've never had one without a cassette player. Driving new luxury cars at work has certainly been an eye-opener.

If it's as you say, it's plausible that these things could be installed post-factory – like, as I suggested in the OP, at the first roadworthy. But I can certainly see the advantage of having the calibrations done automatically through the car's computer system. Personally, I don't care either way because I don't think there's a good reason to make that data publicly accessible and I think provisions for keeping it private could easily be legislated (if enough people thought it was a problem).

[Bucks5]

The next step will be government issuing fines for attempted drink driving for each failed test.