Prototype Scanner Gives Middle Finger To Drunk Driving

MADD should be able to have a device sim­i­lar to this one be required in all new auto­mo­biles within 5 years — maybe it will be a con­ces­sion the automak­ers will have to meet in order to get that fed­eral bail-out money.

Original post located here.

Two stu­dents at a Chinese uni­ver­sity have invented a device that detects high blood alco­hol lev­els by insert­ing a mid­dle fin­ger directly onto a fin­ger­print scanner.

This devel­op­ment bodes well for other hand ges­ture con­trols in future car inno­va­tions. We might have an upside-down touch screen where the car is started by ‘curl­ing your index fin­ger towards you in a sum­mon­ing motion,’ or a by flash­ing a sim­ple thumbs up at scan­ning robot.

Zhao Wencai and Li Zhoumu, from China’s University of Geosciences, pre­sented their device at Beijing’s 3^rd annual China-International Road Safety Expo, an event whose growth reflects the country’s grow­ing con­cern for dri­ving safety. According to the project’s esti­mates, there are about 250,000 traf­fic acci­dents a year and more than 50,000 deaths caused by drunk dri­ving in China.

The device com­bines an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion secu­rity sys­tem with fin­ger­print test­ing. A dri­ver places his mid­dle fin­ger inside a scan­ning box which ana­lyzes the grooves of the fin­ger­print, as well as the chem­i­cal prop­er­ties of the skin (such as oils or sweat). Within twenty sec­onds, the board reveals whether the driver’s con­di­tion is suit­able to drive. If the blood-alcohol level is above the legal limit, the engine will lock up.

The gad­get also serves as a theft pre­ven­tion device. The fin­ger print scan­ner has a data­base of peo­ple allowed to drive the car, so no one can break in and take it for a ride, even if they’re sober. Presumably, you’d need scan all of the fin­ger­prints of peo­ple who might poten­tially use your car in the case of an emer­gency. A sim­i­lar scan­ning device, the ATRD M10, was unveiled last year.

It won’t hap­pen, but it would be great if the gov­ern­ment forces American com­pa­nies to add a fea­ture like this to all their cars in the cur­rent bailout nego­ti­a­tions. According to the Center for Disease Control, one per­son dies every thirty-one min­utes in the U.S from acci­dents related to drink dri­ving and the annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $51 billion.