By late 1991, 20 of the 50 United States had a written law or pilot program supporting the use of breath alcohol ignition interlock devices (BAIIDs) as a condition of probation for a drunk driving offense. A BAIID requires a driver to blow an alcohol-free (or low BAC)breath sample before engine ignition. In response to growing States' interest, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration supported a process for clarification of known problem areas in the use of BAIIDs. This led to issuance of recommended guidelines and testprotocols for State certifying authorities in order to help assess equipment and identify programmatic variables key to the succes of BAIID programs. The new recommended performance criteria emphasize that the purpose of the BAIID is to exclude seriously impaired driversfrom the highways, not to be a precise analytic tool. For this reason, the criteria propose accuracy and precision requirements which are considerably less restrictive than evidential standards, but contain generally conservative protocols for protection from circumvention and tampering. Among the latter are mandatory recording of BAIID use, rolling retests, and delayed lockouts for non-compliance. BAIIDusage history can be examined periodically to evaluate driver compliance. This paper, prepared by the contractors who helped develop the U.S. guidelines, briefly summarizes some of the main considerations. (A).
Abstract