As MADD marks its 45th anniversary, Seeing Machines unveils technology to detect alcohol impaired driving.
CANBERRA, Australia, Sept. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- As hundreds of people gather in Washington, D.C. to remember loved ones killed or injured by drunk drivers, Seeing Machines announced a new capability for its world class Driver Monitoring System (DMS) technology that can now detect non-drowsy driver impairment, including alcohol related impairment.
"For years our technology, now in over 3.7 million cars and over 60,000 trucks today, has been capable of detecting and preventing distracted and drowsy driving," said Seeing Machines Chief Safety Officer Dr Mike Lenné. "After extensive research, development, and rigorous testing we are now able to detect other forms of impairment, including impairment from alcohol to the level currently required by European NCAP (New Car Assessment Program) standards for alcohol detection."
In the U.S., DMS has primarily been used to maintain driver engagement during hands-free driving with systems like Ford's Blue Cruise and General Motors' Super Cruise. The European Union now requires these systems to detect driver distraction and fatigue for safety, and starting from 2026, they must also detect driver impairment from non-fatigue causes that include alcohol use. The U.S. has an important opportunity to align with global standards and meet Congressional requirements by implementing DMS technology in all vehicles.
Seeing Machines has adapted its world-leading DMS technology to detect alcohol impairment ranging from .05 blood alcohol content (BAC) to higher levels, where risk is continually elevating. The highest level of accuracy and precision occurs when drivers are in the .10 BAC range or higher. Given National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) statistics show that 67% of alcohol impaired fatalities included one driver with a BAC limit of .15 or higher[1], bringing a feature to market that targets this range will have a dramatic impact on road safety.
At today's MADD (Mothers Against Drink Driving) event, Seeing Machines will demonstrate how its technology works, as the capability for impairment detection is on US roadways today. The same system that allows the driver to operate hands-free, already detecting distraction and drowsiness, can also tell if the driver is drunk.
"The science is in, the research and development has been done," said Dr Lenné. "Mitigating risks of drunk driving is now a policy decision, not a technological one."
In 2024, Seeing Machines submitted a bold plan as part of NHTSA's Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for advanced alcohol detection. The plan suggested a phased roadmap for DMS adoption.
- Phase One: alert the driver to indicate that the system believes he/she is impaired; encourage driver to pull over;
- Phase Two: vehicle safety systems be alerted to the presence of driver impairment and would become more visible, robust and intentional;
- Phase Three: the vehicle takes more aggressive action by limiting infotainment capability and entering a "limp home mode," which also limits speed, a major factor in drunk driving deaths.
Today we are announcing readiness to support this implementation plan.
At Seeing Machines, our mission is to get people home safely. We work with many of the world's largest and most recognizable automotive brands. The addition of impairment detection, to include alcohol impairment, broadens the capability of DMS and importantly, means that one system can now detect a larger portion of behavioral causes of traffic deaths and injuries.
About Seeing Machines (AIM: SEE), a global company founded in 2000 and headquartered in Australia, is an industry leader in vision-based monitoring technology that enable machines to see, understand and assist people. Seeing Machines' technology portfolio of AI algorithms, embedded processing and optics, power products that need to deliver reliable real-time understanding of vehicle operators. The technology spans the critical measurement of where a driver is looking, through to classification of their cognitive state as it applies to accident risk. Reliable "driver state" measurement is the end-goal of Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) technology. Seeing Machines develops DMS technology to drive safety for Automotive, Commercial Fleet, Off-road and Aviation. The company has offices in Australia, USA, Europe and Asia, and supplies technology solutions and services to industry leaders in each market vertical. www.seeingmachines.com
[1] National Center for Statistics and Analysis. (2024, August, Revised). Alcohol-impaired driving: 2022 data |
(Traffic Safety Facts. Report No. DOT HS 813 578). National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. |
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