Australian AI technology could prove central to a controversial “kill switch” preventing Americans from drink driving.
US laws requiring car makers to make vehicles detect drunk or impaired drivers from 2027 have hit speed bumps, with transport bodies such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) urging lawmakers to delay the implementation until technology has matured.
MORE: Annoying safety features Aussies are switching off
Critics of the plan, which is included in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, have serious concerns surrounding practicality and privacy.
But others, including the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Mothers Against Drink Driving (MADD), say the US can’t afford to wait before making a move.
Canberra-based Seeing Machines believes it has the answer.
Dr Mike Lenné, chief safety officer for Seeing Machines, said in 2025 that driver monitoring cameras and software developed by the company has been capable of detecting and preventing distracted and drowsy driving for years.
MORE: Tech failure reveals problem on our roads
“After extensive research, development, and rigorous testing we are now able to detect other forms of impairment, including impairment from alcohol to the level currently required by European NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) standards for alcohol detection,” he said.
“The science is in, the research and development has been done.
“Mitigating risks of drunk driving is now a policy decision, not a technological one.”
The Seeing Machines plan is to recognise signs of intoxication and have the vehicle take action.
The first phase encourages impaired drivers to pull over.
The second phase involves vehicle safety systems, such as lane keeping assistance or speeding alerts, becoming “more visible, robust and intentional”.
The third phase could disable the stereo, limit speed, and put the car in a “limp home mode” that restricts engine power.
MORE: ANCAP reboots crash test system
When the requiring carmakers to detect and prevent drink driving was passed during Joe Biden’s Presidency in 2021, Mothers Against Drink Driving national president Alex Otte described the moment as “monumental”.
“We need technology to stop the nightmare on our roads,” Otte said.
“Existing technologies and those in development will stop the hazardous driving behaviour of people who refuse to make the right choice themselves.”
This January, Republican representative for Kentucky Thomas Massie called for the law to be overturned.
“There’s a law that states that every vehicle manufactured is gonna have to have a ‘kill switch’ in it”.
“The car itself will monitor your driving, and if the car thinks that you’re not doing a good job driving, it will disable itself.
“So the car dashboard becomes your judge, your jury, and your executioner.
“The technology is unworkable … It’s just a bad idea. But it’s in law.”
A video published to TikTok by Farm to Taber attracted millions of views for outlining potential issues surrounding driver monitoring tech.
“This is really about who owns the data and who owns the liability … it’s going to get used and abused,” he said.
Looking beyond cameras, other systems that may be used to detect drunk drivers include a touch-based skin scanner that could be implemented into a vehicle’s starter button, or clever software that can sense signs of impairment, such as inaccurate or erratic steering input.
Passive breathalysers could detect heavy concentrations of alcohol from normal breathing, rather than current test procedures that require people to blow into a tube.
IIHS president David Harkey said “the sooner we can start getting these features into vehicles, the sooner we can make risky-driving deaths a thing of the past”.
“But even if we start tomorrow, it will be decades before all vehicles on the road are equipped with these systems,” he said.
“That’s why we also need to continue advancing strong policies to deter impaired driving, speeding and other problem behaviours.”
But the NHTSA says there are no in-vehicle technologies currently in production that can reliably measure the blood alcohol concentration at or above legal limits in the US.
It says existing tech, including driver monitoring cameras, “are not ready to be integrated into vehicles sold to the general public”.
“No such technologies have demonstrated an adequate level of confidence and reliability to support a regulatory requirement, especially when considering vehicle countermeasures that may limit vehicle operation,” stated a NHTSA report in February.
“Even a 99.9 per cent detection accuracy level could result in millions to tens of millions of instances each year where the technology would incorrectly prevent or limit drivers from operating their vehicles, or fail to prevent or limit impaired drivers from doing so.” The safety body questioned how people would react to their car failing to start if it suspected the driver had been drinking.
“Would some individuals decide to walk to their destination in the road, increasing their risk of being hit by another vehicle?” it said.
“Would they get a sober person to start their vehicle and then take over the driving task themselves? Are there countermeasures to discourage this practice by shutting down the vehicle for a period of time after two failed attempts?”
Car makers have been preparing to ramp up driver impairment detection systems for some time.
Back in 2007, Toyota announced plans to develop an alcohol interlock system for fleet vehicles.
At the same time, Nissan produced a concept car with sophisticated alcohol odour sensors in the driver’s seat and gear selector that would prevent a car from being put into gear if drivers were drunk. The Nissan concept included a driver monitoring camera almost 20 years ago.
In 2019, Volvo published an announcement outlining a plan for cars to watch for signs of drunk driving including “extreme weaving across lanes or excessively slow reaction times”.
Trent Victor, former professor of driver behaviour at Volvo, said at the time that “there are many accidents that occur as a result of intoxicated drivers”.
“Some people still believe that they can drive after having had a drink, and that this will not affect their capabilities,” he said.
“We want to ensure that people are not put in danger as a result of intoxication.”
There are no laws in Australia states or territories yet similar to the US legislation. However Australia has been on the forefront of AI driver tech, given we were the 6th country to allow Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (Supervised.
