Apparently, drunk driving is infrastructure, too.
The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill President Biden will sign into law on Monday includes a provision that will require automakers to install an anti-drunk driving system into all new cars.
The mandate falls under the section of the bill that provides $17 billion to road safety programs. Under the timeline laid out by the bill, the mandate could go into effect as soon as 2025.
“To ensure the prevention of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology must be standard equipment in all new passenger motor vehicles,” the bill says in summing up the findings of Congressional research.
“Not later than 3 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall issue a final rule prescribing a Federal motor vehicle safety standard … that requires passenger motor vehicles manufactured after the effective date of that standard to be equipped with advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology,” according to the provision buried in the massive bill.
It’s not clear exactly what the anti-drunk driving system would look like, but the bill says it needs to be able to “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”
It also needs to be able to “detect whether the blood alcohol concentration of a driver of a motor vehicle is equal to or greater than” the legal limit, or 0.08 percent, the bill says.
And the system must “prevent or limit motor vehicle operation if an impairment is detected,” according to the bill.
In defense of the mandate, the bill says it could prevent more than 9,400 “alcohol-impaired driving fatalities” every year.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving hailed the provision as “the beginning of the end of drunk driving.”
“We need technology to stop the nightmare on our roads,” MADD National President Alex Otte said.
“Existing technologies and those in development will stop the hazardous driving behavior of people who refuse to make the right choice themselves.”
Representatives for the Big Three Detroit automakers, Ford, Stellantis and General Motors, did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
The requirement is sure to put a costly burden on car manufacturers — not to mention the legal questions it will raise about whether manufacturers will now be responsible for drunk driving crashes in which a driver overrode the mandated technology.
Dan Hearsch, managing director in the automotive and industrial practice at AlixPartners, told Fortune that the questions raised by the mandate are just some of the first issues that will face manufacturers as they roll out electric cars with increasingly autonomous driving systems.
