Drinking and Driving have always been a major concern for all. Every year, more than 10,000 people become victims of drinking and driving in the United States. However, a new law is here. It enacts to address this issue. The legislation requires every vehicle to have an alcohol detection system.
Introducing this new law on Wednesday, US President, Joe Biden, signed the infrastructure bill that requires new cars to have the alcohol detection system installed as standard equipment. It was after Sarah Carmichael, a victim, as a result, became an advocate for all other victims and, in collaboration with the anti-drunk-driving advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), advocated federal legislation to make alcohol detection devices required in all automobiles.
I’m crying tears of joy today. This is the beginning of the end of drunk driving
She describes how a car accident in February 2008 impacted her life forever. She was halted at a stop sign in Framingham when she was struck by a drunk driver. Speaking to CBS Boston, she says, “I was in a medically induced coma for about 10 days. C1 and C2 vertebrae in my neck were in cracks. As well as the base of my skull, both sides of my collarbone, 11 of my ribs, and my pelvis were shattered,” she tells WBZ-TV’s I-Team. “Doctors prepared my family that I was not going to live.”
Alex Otte, national president of MADD says, “I’m crying tears of joy today. This is the beginning of the end of drunk driving,” she writes in a statement. The statement comes after Biden’s law signing ceremony Monday at the White House. Laura Perrotta, president of the advocacy group American Highway Users Alliance, regards this as a good concept. “Someone uses mouthwash and goes to turn on their car and can’t get it to start, but then someone else has one too many drinks and it doesn’t detect it,” she said. “That could be a real problem.”