NHTSA tells US Congress: advanced impaired driving detection tech isn't ready

From the article:

Back in 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included a provision that forced the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to mandate "advanced impaired-driving prevention technology" in all new passenger vehicles. Essentially, the legislation would force automakers to install anti-drunk-driving technology in cars from the factory. These systems are supposed to be passive, much like the kind of eye-sight monitors present in many new cars made by Subaru, General Motors, Ford, and others—but with the ability to shut off the vehicle if it detects deviations in driving or driver behavior that suggest impairment.

Of course, ideological divisions ran rampant within Congress, with Republican representatives like Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced the No Kill Switches in Cars Act in February 2025. However, federal safety regulators are now weighing in from a more scientific point of view. In a February 2026 report directed to Congress, titled "Advanced Impaired Driving Prevention Technology," NHTSA officials said the passive anti-drunk driving technology isn't ready yet.

"Currently, detection technology around the legal limit continues to have an error rate that would be unacceptably high ... while NHTSA has not made a final determination about the necessary level of accuracy, even a 99.9 percent detection accuracy level could result in millions to tens of millions of instances each year where the technology would incorrectly prevent or limit drivers from operating their vehicles, or fail to prevent or limit impaired drivers from doing so," the report reads. "At this time, NHTSA is not aware of any technology that claims to achieve anywhere close to [the needed] level of accuracy."

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The report goes on to say that while the technology is worth investing in over the long term, federal regulators aren't aware of any version with anywhere close to this level of accuracy in minimizing false positives and false negatives. It's not just the opinion of federal regulators that the technology is behind, either; the report says testing data shows that the current advanced impaired-driving prevention technology doesn't meet the "precision, speed, and reliability" required by the act.

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Counteracting drunk driving is not just about stopping the car from being driven, but also about safely interfering with impaired drivers who are already in motion. Ensuring the car doesn't start for drunk drivers is one thing, but federal officials say disrupting an already-rolling drunk driver adds additional layers of complication; as NHTSA points out, simply stopping a vehicle operated by a drunk driver may lead to unintended consequences.

Either way, the federal safety watchdog says that, even if the technology isn't quite ready, additional resources to combat drunk driving are essential. Behavioral approaches and ignition interlock devices are well-established methods in the anti-drunk driving tool kit, and advanced impaired-driving prevention technology could prove to be another worthy avenue ...in due time.