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

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Forty years in the past, a groundbreaking regulation helped revolutionize America’s tradition concerning drunk driving. The Minimal Authorized Consuming Age-21 Legislation marked an early milestone in MADD’s efforts to remove drunk driving, setting the authorized ingesting age at 21 and saving 1000’s of lives. At present, as lives proceed to be senselessly misplaced to this crime, we name upon the federal government to show the identical unwavering dedication and decisive motion to attain a brand new milestone: ending drunk driving with passive in-vehicle know-how.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed a regulation rising the ingesting age from 18 to 21, alongside drunk driving victims and survivors from MADD, then-U.S. Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole — whose management led to the President’s help — and congressional sponsors of this lifesaving invoice. Equally, in 2021, MADD stood alongside President Joe Biden as he signed into regulation the “Honoring the Abbas Family Legacy to Terminate (HALT) Drunk Driving Act,” which when carried out will equip all new automobiles with anti-drunk driving know-how.

These two legal guidelines bookend MADD’s decades-long work to avoid wasting lives and stop accidents by ending drunk driving.

Setting the minimal ingesting age at 21 had an unparalleled impression on lowering drunk driving deaths amongst younger folks. The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration (NHTSA) estimates roughly 800 to 900 lives are saved yearly on account of setting the minimal authorized ingesting age within the U.S. at 21.

The motion on the ingesting age regulation got here at a time of exceptional coverage developments in site visitors security. Lower than per week earlier, Secretary Dole had issued a daring proposal on seat belts and air luggage that resulted within the adoption of air luggage in automobiles and an increase in seat belt use from 13% in 1984 to 92% as we speak.

Whereas these security advances have saved lots of of 1000’s of lives, drunk driving stays the main reason behind deaths on U.S. roads, killing greater than 13,000 folks in 2022. Alarmingly, drunk driving deaths have spiked 33% since 2019.

We’d like a transformative answer to finish drunk driving as soon as and for all. Passive auto know-how could make this imaginative and prescient a actuality. That’s why speedy implementation of the HALT Act is so essential.

The HALT Act was championed with bipartisan management 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 confirmed that Congress — like MADD — acknowledges the ability of know-how to cease the scourge of drunk driving.

The HALT Act directs the U.S. Division of Transportation (USDOT) to ascertain a federal regulation for the know-how by November 15, 2024. MADD urges the USDOT to satisfy this deadline.

As soon as the regulation is in place, automakers will then have two to 3 years to construct the required know-how into each new automobile. In line with the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security, the know-how may save 10,000 lives yearly when totally carried out.

Just like the lifesaving impact of seat belts, air luggage, digital stability management and automated emergency braking, the drunk driving prevention know-how required by the HALT Act represents a big step towards our final aim: ending the fully preventable crime of drunk driving.

Earlier this yr, the USDOT and NHTSA printed an Advance Discover of Proposed Rulemaking for the know-how and obtained 1000’s of responses from the auto trade, know-how corporations, advocates, and the general public. These feedback are below overview. NHTSA should subsequent publish the proposed regulation, gather extra suggestions throughout a 60-day public remark interval, and — in the end — situation the ultimate rule.

We acknowledge that it is a important job, however it have to be accomplished expeditiously as a result of each day that passes, lives are at stake. As NHTSA reviews on its web site, an individual dies each 39 minutes in a drunk driving crash within the U.S.

These aren’t simply numbers. They’re folks — members of the family, mates, family members who aren’t coming residence. It doesn’t must be this manner. Sufficient is sufficient.

Because the November 15, 2024, deadline for the HALT Act regulation approaches, all eyes are on USDOT and NHTSA. The clock is ticking and lives hold within the stability. We urge regulators to do the whole lot they’ll to satisfy this crucial deadline. On daily basis that passes means extra households will face the devastating information that they’ve misplaced a beloved one to a drunk driving crash.

By Stacey D. Stewart is the CEO of Moms Towards Drunk Driving® (MADD)