IT COMES FROM JAPAN AND IS MADE BY TOYOTA: A HANDHELD DEVICE ANALYZES BREATH AND THE FACE OF THE DRIVER. IF THE DRIVER IS DRUNK AT THE WHEEL, THE CAR DOESN’T START AND IT’S THE CAR THAT DECIDES.

What about the never ending battle over alcohol abuse and the consequences for road safety? If the driver is drunk, now the car itself makes the decision whether to go or not, and waits until the driver is sober. The latest life-saving technology comes from Japan, where drunk driving is an everyday issue.
The solution, for truck drivers in particular, comes from Toyota in collaboration with Hino Motors, the Japanese manufacturer of trucks and buses. We need to ”provide assistance to companies and organizations with the goal of a safer fleet management”. A handheld device the size of a mobile phone mounted on light and heavy commercial vehicles of Japanese transport companies, will analyze the breath while a digital camera will take a picture of the face of the driver, before leaving.

The results are automatically recorded on a digital techograph on board the vehicle: if the test is “positive” an alarm warns the driver he is over the limit and if he has gone way over the limit the ignition is immediately blocked.

The device is still in the experimental stage and the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is closely following tests of the device being carried out. A commission is studying various proposals for road safety technology. The Ministry will install the equipment on their own vehicles in order to perform their own tests. The results will then be compared with those obtained by Toyota.