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RESEARCHERS IN POLAND have developed a laser which can discover if the person behind the wheel has been drinking.
The study, published in the Journal of Applied Remote Sensing by scientists at Warsaw’s Military University of Technology, can detect alcohol vapor inside moving vehicles using special curved mirrors and beams of light.
By shining a laser through a car from the side of the road, before the beam bounces back off a mirror and into a detector, researchers can find out what a driver’s blood alcohol level is.
If the levels are over the limit, a photo of the car, including its number plate, is sent to a policeman who can stop the suspected car and check the driver using conventional equipment.
The beam can detect blood alcohol concentrations of as low as 0.1mg/ml (milligrams of alcohol per milliliter of blood) in tests simulating the breathing of a drunk driver.
However, the team say the beam could be capable of detecting lower alcohol concentrations and could help reduce the number of cars that have to be checked, and increase efficacy of stopping drunken drivers.
Before you start expecting this to appear anytime soon, the researchers did identify a number of caveats and countermeasures that make the device less effective like leaving the windows open, or the detection of passengers who may have been drinking.
However, the authors wrote that “such situations are very easily detected by the system, which sends this information to the policeman indicating that the car should be checked.”
The study concluded that the next stage of the project will look at the possible countermeasures and investigate them, before it makes it a commercial product.
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Most of Kerry is F so
Can you sign up to test it and where, probably the only place to legally drink and drive? Sign me up please sounds like a nice day out
Magic!
Not much good in a convertible.
ha.. it will be middle of winter and loads of cars driving round at night with all the windows down.. LOL
Frank is a monster #frankenstein
If it can detect concentrations that low, perhaps even aftershave would set it off.
Or a Guinness fart.
Doesn’t really matter if it does flag false positives due to mouthwash or aftershave (or emissions, Frank) – this will just be used to filter drivers, not secure convictions. So if you’ve bathed in your David Beckham aftershave of a morning and pass one of these machines, you’ll be flagged to a nearby guard as a possible drink driver. However, should his traditional tests prove negative then you go on your way. The point is just more efficient targeting of suspects rather than our current random spot check system.
All the poor metrosexual sissy mens nightmare. They be flagged left right and centre.
Frank you could detect that without any frickin laser!
I’d the drink drive limit was brought down to .01 would you be drunk driving if your reading was .02?
What if the person driving is sober but the passanger or passangers are steaming . Can’t really see this taking off to be honest.
They covered that.
The system just identifies who to stop and test. If it works it will be everywhere.
What if you read the article?
Jackie Heally Rae won’t be too happy
Read that paper – it could work. Definitely to filter drivers for breath tests.
“Laser”
Will they be attached to sharks heads or will we have to settle for mutated sea bass? Only time will tell.
Are they ill tempered sea bass?
Extremely
if it is reading ‘alcohol vapors ‘ could readings be affected by things like mouthwash or aftershave or even if there has been an open bottle or can of beer in the car? .
Isn’t it illegal to have an open container of alcohol in a car?
What if the driver is the only person sober in the car, like most taxi’s on the weekend. Is every taxi going to be stopped. But its more obvious to just open the windows while driving and allow vapours to be blown away. Also how would it work if the side windows were tinted. Often projects which work in the lab under optimal conditions just end up as pipe dreams in the real world.
Nothing as obvious as methane emissions I suppose!
why bother with it? the check point system they use now would be far more effective.
Something like this could be used in conjunction with a conventional system….
Have a Gatso van or mobile unit installed with one of these.. .If a car is detected the registration details could be put through the pulse system. Cops could then be waiting several miles down the road ready to flag or could even be waiting at the address of an individual.
That’s the real world. ! We don’t live there.
Frank is a moaner.
How does it differentiate drivers blood alcohol from other passengers;
What if multiple drunken people in car but a sober driver?
I imagine that you would get pulled over anyway and questions would be asked.
What if people asked themselves these questions in their heads first before typing them?
More Nanny/Police State coming.
Just stay in doors and never go out, order your groceries from Tesco to be delivered. Stay in doors!!! Don’t leave!! Big Brother is watching you.
Do you really object to society demanding that you be sober when in control of a vehicle on a public road?
I object to being monitored and watched with there being seemingly endless nanny state regulations.
I don’t drink and drive, I don’t know anyone who does. That’s not the point.
We don’t want a police/nanny state.
Good thing I ride a horse
have your say