Interlocks Fail
Technology is never perfect. Whether it’s due to human error or device malfunction, gadgets run into problems.
Interlocks are no different, but the potential problems caused by interlock malfunction are serious.
Last year, former MADD Chapter Executive Director Charles Peña wrote:
Let’s assume that ignition interlock technology is nearly perfect—99.99 percent accurate (which is generous and highly unlikely) in correctly measuring BAC. If half of all the licensed drivers (120 million people) drive to and from work each day, the number of false positives—i.e., people incorrectly identified as exceeding the set BAC limit—would be 12,000 each time those people tried to start their cars.
So 24,000 times a day, drivers who are simply trying to drive to work or pick up their children from school each day would be prevented from driving their cars because they were erroneously identified as “drunk.”[1]
Aside from the inconvenience of having a car that won’t start due to a false positive, there are legal and privacy implications.
Today’s interlocks record each breath sample and can report how many times the driver attempts to start his or her vehicle after drinking. Similarly, NHTSA has argued that universal interlocks should have the same capacity regarding non-convicted drivers:
One concept employs alcohol-vapor sensors installed in vehicles that can communicate their data to police. The data stream would contain vehicle identifiers as well as alcohol concentrations. A low-cost, short-range service such as WiFi Max or similar would be used as the link. Police could use notebook computers or personal digital assistants (PDAs) to receive the data.[2]
This creates a scary situation for the sober driver whose interlock has malfunctioned.
