Mandatory driver impairment sensors clear a funding hurdle, but are they ready? [View all]

Source: AP

By JEFF McMURRAY
Updated 1:25 AM CST, February 14, 2026

A federal law requiring impairment-detection devices inside all new cars survived a recent push to strip its funding but remains stalled by questions about whether the technology is ready.

Rana Abbas Taylor lost her sister, brother-in-law, nephew and two nieces when a driver with a blood-alcohol level almost four times the legal limit slammed into their car in January 2019 as the Michigan family drove through Lexington, Kentucky, on the way home from a Florida vacation.

The tragedy turned Abbas Taylor into an outspoken advocate for stopping the more than 10,000 alcohol-related deaths each year on U.S. roads. Lawmakers attached the Honoring Abbas Family Legacy to Terminate Drunk Driving Act to the $1 trillion infrastructure law that then-President Joe Biden signed in 2021.

The measure, often referred to as the Halt Drunk Driving Act, anticipated that as early as this year, auto companies would be required to roll out technology to “passively” detect when drivers are drunk or impaired and prevent their cars from operating. Regulators can choose from a range of options, including air monitors that sample the car’s interior for traces of alcohol, fingertip readers that measure a driver’s blood-alcohol level, or scanners that detect signs of impairment in eye or head movements.



Read more: https://apnews.com/article/federal-law-impairment-detection-car-dui-062d40e885a0e32c6cad0ba70163aef8