OPINION:
Just in time for Father’s Day, the federal government and automakers have unveiled the perfect gift for Dad — a device to stop him from drinking a beer or two at a ballgame before driving home. In fact, the system is even called DADSS. It’s short for the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety — passive, alcohol sensing technology under development for installation in all cars.
This paternalistic intrusion into our vehicles is an overreaching solution in search of a problem.
Drunk driving used to be punished with little more than a traffic ticket — which was a problem. Then in 1980, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) started a national campaign to strengthen punishments for drunk drivers and educate the public about the dangers of driving drunk. The campaign morphed into ubiquitous public service messages, including “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” and “Don’t drink and drive.”
The resulting shift in behavior represents one of the most successful examples of developing a new societal norm. Alcohol-related traffic fatalities have been cut in half since the campaign began — in 1980 more than 21,000 Americans died in drunk-driving crashes. In 2013, that number was just over 10,000.
For sober drivers and their companions today, the chances of dying at the hands of a drunk driver are smaller than most people imagine. Consider that in 2013, nearly 80 percent of those killed in drunk-driving crashes were either the drunk drivers themselves or the adults who (presumably) willingly got into the car with an already-impaired driver. Conversely, your exposure to being killed by a drunk driver is one chance in every 1.4 billion miles traveled. That’s nearly 250,000 round trips from New York City to Los Angeles.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that drunk driving isn’t a problem — it is. But much like every crime in society, there will always be that irreducible minimum of violent behavior. And that can’t be affected without an enormous financial cost and surrender to a suffocating police-state mentality.
I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for decades. During that time, I’ve watched MADD turn from targeting the chronic, heavily intoxicated repeat-offender drunk drivers to policies aimed at reducing moderate, responsible drinking. Even MADD’s founder, Candy Lightner, who once worked with me on the problem, acknowledged mission creep when she said MADD has “become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned.”
DADSS is yet another step toward that neo-prohibition. Both the federal government and MADD admit the goal is to put detection devices in every car. And because an individual’s blood alcohol concentration level rises over time after consumption, the devices to be effective will have to be set with a margin as low as .03 or .04 percent to ensure drivers can’t operate a vehicle while above the current .08 percent legal limit. It means for most adults, driving home after one or two drinks with dinner could be a thing of the past.
Then there is the issue of electronic-mechanical integrity. Even if these devices are manufactured to the government’s targeted Six Sigma standard of reliability, they’re going to malfunction up to 4,000 times per day nationwide. Sober drivers will be stranded. Drunk drivers will be able to start their cars. And if the technology is slightly less reliable, there could be up to 3 million malfunctions every day.
Considering the trade-offs — possible malfunctions when you can least afford being stuck, a likely end to moderate drinking before driving, and a host of lawsuits surrounding these malfunctions after a crash — installing these devices in every car simply isn’t a proportional response to a diminishing problem. And that says nothing about the added cost to each car that will be paid by every owner. In 2013 there were 2,115 driving-while-intoxicated innocent-victim fatalities. For context, in that same year, 28,851 people died from unintentional poisoning and 6,601 died from unintentional suffocation. More than 25,000 died from falling down at home.
Risk is everywhere, but we don’t ban bleach or plastic bags because if accidentally ingested or used improperly, they can be deadly.
MADD has made great strides toward protecting innocent people from drunk drivers. Instead of focusing on the remaining problem — chronic drunk drivers who continue to drive while highly intoxicated despite the social stigma, risk to themselves and others, and threat of punishment — the organization wants to punish and or inconvenience all of us.
As difficult an idea as it will seem to some, it’s one more government restraint the evidence doesn’t justify. This Father’s Day, we don’t need DADSS to replace the ones we already have.
• Rick Berman is president of Berman and Co., a Washington public affairs firm.
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