A federal law requiring all new cars to be equipped with damage-detection devices survived a recent funding divestment effort but has stalled amid questions about the technology’s readiness.
In January 2019, Rana Abbas Taylor lost her sister, brother-in-law, nephew and two nieces when a driver with a blood-alcohol content nearly four times the legal limit crashed into their car while driving through Lexington, Kentucky, from a vacation in Florida.
The tragedy turned Taylor into an outspoken advocate working to end the more than 10,000 alcohol-related deaths on U.S. roads each year. Lawmakers attached the Honoring the Abbas Family Legacy and Ending Drunk Driving Act to the $1 trillion infrastructure law signed by then-President Joe Biden in 2021.
The measure, commonly known as the Stop Drunk Driving Act, would see car companies expected to be required as early as this year to roll out technology to “passively” detect when drivers are drunk or driving under the influence and stop their cars from running. Regulators can choose from a range of options, including air monitors that sample the interior of a car for traces of alcohol, fingertip readers that measure a driver’s blood alcohol concentration, or scanners that detect signs of impaired eye or head movement.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving called it the most important legislation in the organization’s 45-year history. Still, implementation has been bogged down by regulatory delays, without any clear signal that final approval is imminent.
“We don’t measure time in days, months or years. We measure time in terms of deaths,” Abbas Taylor told The Associated Press in an interview. “So when we hear manufacturers say ‘we need more time’ or ‘the technology isn’t ready yet’ or ‘we’re not there yet,’ all we hear is ‘it’s going to take more people dying before we’re willing to solve this problem.'”
The ‘kill switch’ debate
Last month, a Republican-led effort to defund the PAUSE Act was defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 268-164. Another bill to repeal the act entirely is awaiting a committee vote.
Most of the opposition stemmed from the law’s proposal to require manufacturers to equip cars with “kill switches.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in a post on social platform
The alcohol industry mounts a vigorous legal defense against such arguments. Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said the council specifically requires the technology to be passive, similar to other current safety regulations such as seat belts and air bags.
“There is no conversion, no government control, no data sharing,” he said. “This is just an unfortunate scare tactic.”
But even the dashboard itself can serve as “your judge, your jury and your executioner,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who sponsored the defunding effort. He gave the example of a mother who swerved to avoid hitting her neighbor’s pet during a snowstorm, only to have her car stall because it was a sign she was hurt.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade association for U.S. automakers, made similar arguments to regulators in 2024, arguing that more research was needed before authorizing use of the technology.
“Even if one in 10,000 trips is expected to result in a false alarm, this could result in thousands of unaffected drivers experiencing issues that prevent them from driving every day,” the coalition wrote.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is developing rules to implement the STOP Act, told The Associated Press in an email that it is still “evaluating technology development for potential deployment” and expects to report to Congress soon. Even backers predict the agency will delay the decision until at least 2027, leaving car companies with another two to three years to install it.
Ensure technical reliability
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research organization funded by auto insurance companies, recently announced that impairment detection and other technologies designed to curb risky driving behavior will soon be included in the criteria for vehicles to win one of the top safety awards.
Many states have enacted laws requiring the installation of breath-activated ignition interlock systems in the cars of DUI offenders. The system ultimately selected under the STOP Act is designed to detect impairment beyond drunk driving.
“We’re still fighting the idea that this technology doesn’t exist,” said Stephanie Manning, MADD’s chief government affairs officer. “We’ve seen a lot of different types of technology that can address drunk driving. We just haven’t seen it deployed and implemented the way we want it to.”
To speed up the process, Congress is advancing a bill that would provide $45 million in bonuses to anyone who can produce and deploy the first consumer-ready technology. Abbas Taylor, whose family was killed in a Kentucky crash, said efforts like this give her hope.
“When you’ve lost everything, nothing can stop you from fighting for justice,” she said. “But we saw the writing on the wall and we knew it was only a matter of time before this happened.”