Accidents involving drunk drivers in Monmouth County can be especially frustrating for victims and their families since they are usually preventable accidents. Despite laws that make driving drunk illegal and stiff penalties for doing so, some people make the poor decision to get behind the wheel after imbibing alcohol anyway. In order to cut down on repeat offenders, many states have begun to utilize tools to keep those people from driving drunk. One such tool is an ignition interlock device.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ignition interlocks work by connecting a car’s ignition to a breath testing device. The driver then has to prove that their blood alcohol content is below a certain value in order for the car to start. When they are used, ignition interlocks have been found to stop offenders from repeated incidences of drunk driving 70 percent of the time.
However, some people question their effectiveness due to the fact that it seems easy to trick the device. LifeSafer reports that this is simply not true. For instance, some posit that a driver could blow into the device while sober to start the car and then drink while they are on the road or while the car is running. Since many interlocks require the driver to blow into the device every so often, this makes doing so not very feasible.
Another common myth is that someone else could blow into the device for the driver. Newer models actually use cameras to document who is starting the car, so the device’s data would rat out anyone who tried to do this.
