As We Acknowledge 40-12 months Anniversary of Ingesting Age Regulation, USDOT Should Act on Lifesaving Auto Tech

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Forty years in the past, a groundbreaking legislation helped revolutionize America’s tradition relating to drunk driving. The Minimal Authorized Ingesting Age-21 Regulation marked an early milestone in MADD’s efforts to get rid of drunk driving, setting the authorized ingesting age at 21 and saving 1000’s of lives. Right this moment, as lives proceed to be senselessly misplaced to this crime, we name upon the federal government to display the identical unwavering dedication and decisive motion to realize a brand new milestone: ending drunk driving with passive in-vehicle know-how.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed a legislation 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 legislation the “Honoring the Abbas Household Legacy to Terminate (HALT) Drunk Driving Act,” which when applied will equip all new autos with anti-drunk driving know-how.

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

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

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

Whereas these security advances have saved a whole lot of 1000’s of lives, drunk driving stays the main reason for deaths on U.S. roads, killing greater than 13,000 individuals 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 fast 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 facility of know-how to cease the scourge of drunk driving.

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

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

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

Earlier this yr, the USDOT and NHTSA revealed an Advance Discover of Proposed Rulemaking for the know-how and acquired 1000’s of responses from the auto business, know-how corporations, advocates, and the general public. These feedback are beneath assessment. NHTSA should subsequent publish the proposed regulation, acquire extra suggestions throughout a 60-day public remark interval, and — in the end — challenge the ultimate rule.

We acknowledge that it is a vital activity, but it surely have to be accomplished expeditiously as a result of every single 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 individuals — relations, associates, family members who aren’t coming dwelling. It doesn’t should be this fashion. 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 dangle within the steadiness. We urge regulators to do every little thing they will to fulfill this crucial deadline. Day-after-day that passes means extra households will face the devastating information that they’ve misplaced a liked one to a drunk driving crash.

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