The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aka NHTSA, along with the state of Virginia have announced $5.1 million in funding to develop and deploy DADSS – Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety.This technology could eliminate drunk driving, which is responsible for more than 10,000 deaths annually in the US.

DADSS is a public-private partnership between the government and automakers to develop safety technology to help passively detect a driver’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and prevent drivers from starting a vehicle if they are at or above the .08 legal BAC limit in all 50 states.

The goal of the DADSS research program is to advance the state of passive alcohol detection technology by developing a system that is fast, accurate, reliable and affordable – all without affecting normal driving behavior. The program is exploring two different technologies for vehicle integration: a breath-based system and a touch-based system.