Risks of drunk driving and how to minimize them?

Driving under the influence is dangerous. Be it alcohol, drugs or any other substance, it leads to significant increase in accident risk and significant increase in fatalities. If we look at some statistics, they are getting better by the year globally, as driver education is taking place and society in general understands the dangers of drunk driving. Nevertheless, each live lost due to alcohol use is a tragedy that can and should be avoided.

Looking at just United States, the number of fatalities is decreasing at a rather stable pace, but still around 10 000 people die from alcohol-related traffic accidents:

Year	Alcohol related road fatalities	Change, %
2018	10,511	-3.6%
2019	10,142	-3.8%
2020	9,809	-3.3%
2021	9,730	-0.8%

Legislation

Make sure you are up to date with local legislation which regulates alcohol use and driving. There law differs from country to country and even from state to state. For example, the punishments for drunk driving in US vary widely. Arizona, Tennessee, and Georgia are among the states with mandatory jail time for first offenders. On the other hand, California, Connecticut, and Indiana don't have such a requirement. Then there is Wisconsin, where a first-offense drunken driving isn't even a crime. It's a civil infraction that results in a ticket.

Also make sure you are up to date with the local law in regards to your specific fleet. For example in some countries all public transport vehicles should be equipped with breath alcohol test equipment.

What should fleet managers do to fight drunk driving

There are two obvious answers - introduce policies and provide training. The policies should discuss drunk driving or driving under influence of other substances and be in line with the local legislation. Also - it should be as strict as possible - immediate firing of an employee to start with up to doing criminal prosecution and compensating damage done to the last cent. The reason for being as strict as possible is guaranteeing that drivers understand the consequences of drunk driving and think twice before doing that.

What if you still suspect of some drivers driving drunk and need ways to check?

There are two main options:

• Depot
• Remote

Checking drivers for alcohol use in the depot

If your drivers are departing from some depot on a daily basis, like local delivery company, public transport companies, you can install an alcohol test equipment in the depot. Before getting the keys for the vehicle or driving the vehicle outside of the depot, the driver then must negative for an alcohol breath test.

Obviously there are cases when drivers are using alcohol while being on duty - they leave the depot sober, drink later during the day, but these are more like an exception than a norm.

Checking drivers for alcohol remotely

Install alcohol testing equipment in the vehicles - a lot more expensive, but also a lot more effective. There are manufacturers like Drager, Dignita and others which provide in-vehicle alcohol breathalysers, which can also block the engine from starting unless a negative breath test is done.

These companies have created lots of interesting features like analysing the temperature of the breath in order to avoid tricks like blowing some fresh air in the baloon and then letting the balloon blow out the air through breath analyzer and quite a few others.

Additionally if you combine this solution with a telematics solution, you can easily get information about the breath tests in your fleet management system, ask the driver to re-test during the day and quite a few other interesting features.

Of course you can also look for breathalysers on Amazon, however this works only with responsible drivers who just need to check whether they are safe to drive and will make the right decision on their own. You will never know if they were driving drunk or not.