MADD: New Technologies from Vehicle Manufacturers

Video Transcript

"One of the programs that we have got with advanced technology is there's all kinds of creative things that are coming out to help save lives and to help keep impaired drivers off the road. One type of technology is actually in, I believe it's Toyota in 2009, actually has a steering wheel. Over in Japan they've had some very high profile cases of drunk driving, and so they have developed a steering wheel that can actually detect from the palms of your hands if you're over a certain level of impairment with alcohol, and it will act the same way at the ignition interlock program, to where it will go in and stop the car from working. There's other devices out there that's got a horizontal gaze, to once you're over a certain level of impairment, your eye will actually jitter. It can detect things like that. There's another device that actually, the patent holder actually lives here in North Carolina. He was a retired law enforcement officer and he had seen so many crashes of teenagers over and over again, and when his son became a teenager, he kept telling him, "Wear your seatbelt. Wear your seatbelt. Wear your seatbelt", and he continued, would not wear his seat belt. So he invented a device, he told his son he was going to go change the oil and do a whole lube job on the car and everything. The son was like "Hey, I'm going to get it for free, great!". He went and put this device on his car. If his son or, as it's available now, does not have their seatbelt on, this device will cause the radio in the car not to work. I don't know too many teenagers that's going to ride in a car without a radio. And I've heard there's other technology out there, too, that will make it to where an iPod won't work. It'll scramble an iPod, too. So trying to get them to wear their seat belts. And a lot of people are like, "Why are seat belts, why is that one of your programs that you're focusing on?". Eighty percent of the people that are killed in a traffic-related alcohol crash do not have their seat belts on. And so if we can do that, that's going to make a big effect on bringing those numbers down as well. But all kinds of technology. We actually had last year for the first time in New Mexico, a technology summit. Those are just a couple of the examples, but there's a lot of great programs out there that are going to be able to save lives. "