Technical Paper Series – Intoxication
Alcohol continues to be a leading cause of road trauma worldwide, contributing significantly to fatalities and injuries despite ongoing roadside based preventative efforts. Recognising these persistent risks, Seeing Machines has launched its capability to harness the power of DMS technology to identify impairment from alcohol in real time.
Part 1 of Seeing Machines' Technical Paper Series on Non-Fatigue Impairment has been launched and highlights the importance of real-time in-vehicle impairment detection for true safety outcomes.
Our latest research highlights the limitations of relying solely on Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) as a benchmark for impairment. Traditional approaches often overlook the way impairment unfolds over time, resulting in gaps between BAC progression and real-world driver performance. Seeing Machines’ DMS technology aims to bridge this divide by directly assessing functional impairment in real time, ensuring enhanced detection sensitivity and more effective in-cabin intervention strategies.
“Roadside alcohol testing has delivered great reductions in road injury over many years. Our goal is to complement these existing roadside programs by leading the introduction of in-vehicle approaches,” said Dr Mike Lenné, Chief Safety Officer at Seeing Machines. “By incorporating the temporal dynamics of impairment, how it evolves during both the ascending and descending phases of intoxication from alcohol as well as the complex effects of other drugs such as cannabis, our technology can reflect real-time real-world risks and provide greater safety protections to road users.”
To support this approach, Seeing Machines is working with leading experts and universities, conducting pioneering experiments that explore the disconnect between BAC readings and actual driver impairment. These collaborations underscore the Company’s commitment to developing solutions that align technological innovation with real-world safety outcomes.
Part One of the Technical Paper series, “BAC is an insufficient ground truth for real-time impairment detection” is now available, with future instalments set to explore additional aspects of non-fatigue impairment, including from cannabis, and further enhance the capabilities of DMS technology for road safety.
