As We Recognize 40-Year Anniversary of Drinking Age Law, USDOT Must Act on Lifesaving Auto Tech – CleanTechnica

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Forty years ago, a groundbreaking law helped revolutionize America’s culture regarding drunk driving. The Minimum Legal Drinking Age-21 Law marked an early milestone in MADD’s efforts to eliminate drunk driving, setting the legal drinking age at 21 and saving thousands of lives. Today, as lives continue to be senselessly lost to this crime, we call upon the government to demonstrate the same unwavering commitment and decisive action to achieve a new milestone: ending drunk driving with passive in-vehicle technology.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed a law increasing the drinking age from 18 to 21, alongside drunk driving victims and survivors from MADD, then-U.S. Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole — whose leadership led to the President’s support — and congressional sponsors of this lifesaving bill. Similarly, in 2021, MADD stood alongside President Joe Biden as he signed into law the “Honoring the Abbas Family Legacy to Terminate (HALT) Drunk Driving Act,” which when implemented will equip all new vehicles with anti-drunk driving technology.

These two laws bookend MADD’s decades-long work to save lives and prevent injuries by ending drunk driving.

Setting the minimum drinking age at 21 had an unparalleled impact on reducing drunk driving deaths among young people. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates approximately 800 to 900 lives are saved every year as a result of setting the minimum legal drinking age in the U.S. at 21.

The action on the drinking age law came at a time of remarkable policy advancements in traffic safety. Less than a week earlier, Secretary Dole had issued a bold proposal on seat belts and air bags that resulted in the adoption of air bags in vehicles and a rise in seat belt use from 13% in 1984 to 92% today.

While these safety advances have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, drunk driving remains the leading cause of deaths on U.S. roads, killing more than 13,000 people in 2022. Alarmingly, drunk driving deaths have spiked 33% since 2019.

We need a transformative solution to end drunk driving once and for all. Passive auto technology can make this vision a reality. That’s why immediate implementation of the HALT Act is so crucial.

The HALT Act was championed with bipartisan leadership from Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI), U.S. Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Rick Scott (R-FL) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV). Its passage showed that Congress — like MADD — recognizes the power of technology to stop the scourge of drunk driving.

The HALT Act directs the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to establish a federal regulation for the technology by November 15, 2024. MADD urges the USDOT to meet this deadline.

Once the regulation is in place, automakers will then have two to three years to build the required technology into every new car. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the technology could save 10,000 lives annually when fully implemented.

Like the lifesaving effect of seat belts, air bags, electronic stability control and automatic emergency braking, the drunk driving prevention technology required by the HALT Act represents a significant step toward our ultimate goal: ending the completely preventable crime of drunk driving.

Earlier this year, the USDOT and NHTSA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the technology and received thousands of responses from the auto industry, technology companies, advocates, and the public. Those comments are under review. NHTSA must next publish the proposed regulation, collect more feedback during a 60-day public comment period, and — at long last — issue the final rule.

We recognize that this is a significant task, but it must be completed expeditiously because every day that passes, lives are at stake. As NHTSA reports on its website, a person dies every 39 minutes in a drunk driving crash in the U.S.

Those aren’t just numbers. They’re people — family members, friends, loved ones who aren’t coming home. It doesn’t have to be this way. Enough is enough.

As the November 15, 2024, deadline for the HALT Act regulation approaches, all eyes are on USDOT and NHTSA. The clock is ticking and lives hang in the balance. We urge regulators to do everything they can to meet this critical deadline. Every day that passes means more families will face the devastating news that they have lost a loved one to a drunk driving crash.

By Stacey D. Stewart is the CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving® (MADD)