Hand-Held Device Detects Impaired Drivers
British police are studying a handheld device intended to locate drivers compromised by alcohol, drugs, or excessive fatigue.
The “impairment detector” is meant to give a quick positive or negative decision on whether an individual can safely drive and functions by determining the driver’s behavior, rather than testing for specific substances.
The prototype of the detector, which is currently being tested, yields two tests, which take around 10 minutes to conduct, and assess whether someone is too impaired to be on the road.
The tests assess three crucial driving skills: Motor control, the ability to handle the unexpected, and levels of concentration. In the initial test, volunteers are asked to employ a stylus to follow an object moving across a PDA screen, while another object randomly appears in the screen’s corner.
When that occurs, the volunteers are mandated to push a button while continuing to track the moving object; this test determines the volunteer’s ability to do a motor control task while their attention is distracted by unplanned events.
In the other test, road signs appear every second on the screen. The driver must respond to all of them, and expect a “target” sign that they have been informed about at the beginning of the test.
When the target appears, they must not respond; it is referred to as a “sustained attention” task, and measures an individual’s ability to concentrate.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from theNew Scientist (11/19/03); Lawton, Graham.