Dominion Students Spread Happiness in Fight Against Drunk Driving

On January 11, 2013, Jake Backers, Laura Gyamfi and Ariel Kesick, three Dominion High School students of Sterling, VA, helped bring awareness to the issue of drinking and driving.

 In a basketball game against a rival high school, Potomac Falls, the three students promoted the Happiness foundation, an organization which inspires young adults to refrain from drinking and driving or getting into a car with an intoxicated driver. 

By encouraging students of both schools to wear bright neon green T-shirts which represent the cause, Backers, Gyamfi and Kesick extended knowledge of the issue and the foundation beyond the perimeter of their community. 

Click Here for the original article

Alcohol Detecting Technology Could Save 10,000 A Year From Drunk-Driving Deaths

Researchers at QinetiQ North America are working on the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, or DADSS, to make drunk driving accidents a thing of the past. 

While some cars might have court mandated breathalyzer tests that can prevent someone who's drunk from driving a vehicle, it's not hard to 'fudge' the test by having a passenger take it for you. However, the new equipment being developed by scientists just outside of Boston can prevent something like that from happening. 

The new $10 million equipment is a start and stop button that will gauge each driver’s alcohol level with infrared light sent into the fingertip. The sensor will also detect whether someone from the passenger seat is leaning over to press the button, informed project leader Bud Zaouk.

“DADSS supporters claim the alcohol detectors would be voluntary and set at 0.08,” said Sarah Longwell, managing director of American Beverage Institute, “but there is a growing mountain of evidence showing that their true goal is to put alcohol-sensing technology in all cars as original equipment, set well below the 0.08 level.”

However there is plenty of time to fight it out. DADSS says the equipment won't be ready for another 8-10 years.


Click Here for the original article 

Holiday Drunk Driving Statistics

Though this doesn't apply to every state, I found this interesting and pretty disturbing. These are the stats for drunk driving in New York state for the holiday season. Police began their campaign December 14th and ended it January 1st. In that time period, state police issued more than 33,000 traffic tickets and arrested 538 people for driving while intoxicated.

Troopers say they operated 29 sobriety checkpoints, a dozen details targeting underage drinking, 10 "saturation details" targeting a specific area for drunken drivers and 41 additional dedicated local patrols against drunken driving.

State police say their results included 22 arrests for providing alcohol to minors and 12 related penal law violations.




Click Here for the original article