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The Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety (ACTS) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have commenced a five-year cooperative agreement exploring the feasibility of, and the public policy challenges associated with, widespread use of in-vehicle alcohol detection technology to prevent alcohol-impaired driving. This effort, known as the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) program, aims to develop technologies that could be a component of a system to prevent the vehicle from being driven when the device registers that the driver's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds the legal limit (currently 0.08 g/dL throughout the United States). For DADSS installation as original equipment in new vehicles there are critical requirements to be met. Alcohol detection technology must be seamless to the driver and be able to quickly and accurately measure the driver's BAC non-invasively.

Using data from the National Automotive Sampling System/Crashworthiness Data System (NASS/CDS) for1995-96, this study updates previous analyses of driver fatalities in airbag-equipped vehicles in the NASS/CDS database for 1989-93 and 1989-94. A total of 59 cases of frontal crashes of airbag-equipped vehicles with driver fatalities were identified in these 8 years of NASS/CDS data, but in 9 cases the fatalities were not related to the impacts (e.g., fire, medical condition). Vehicle intrusion was the cause of the fatal injuries in 27 cases, and 7drivers died from injuries sustained when they were either partially or totally ejected from their vehicles. There was one case in which the airbag did not deploy, although the crash conditions indicated it should have. One driver died from contact with a nonintruding vehicle surface, and the causes of the fatal injuries in 5 cases were unknown.