Request for Information: Impaired Driving Technologies
| Citation | 85 FR 71987 |
| Record Number | 2020-24951 |
| Published date | 12 November 2020 |
| Section | Notices |
| Court | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration |
Federal Register, Volume 85 Issue 219 (Thursday, November 12, 2020)
[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 219 (Thursday, November 12, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 71987-71989]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-24951]
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NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION
[Docket No. NHTSA-2020-0102]
Request for Information: Impaired Driving Technologies
AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), DOT.
ACTION: Request for information.
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SUMMARY: This notice requests information from interested parties to
help inform the agency on available or late stage technology under
development for impaired driving detection and mitigation. It also
fulfills the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the Further
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, Public Law 116-94 (2020), which
directs NHTSA to facilitate the sharing of information and the
implementation and integration of impaired driving technology across
the automotive industry.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before January 11, 2021.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by the docket number in
the heading of this document or by using any of the following methods:
Electronic submissions: Go to http://www.regulations.gov.
Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
Mail: Docket Management Facility. M-30, U.S. Department of
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor,
Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590.
Fax: 1-202-493-2251.
Instructions: Comments submitted to the docket should not include
any sensitive personal information or confidential business
information. Each submission must include the Agency name and the
Docket number for this Notice. Note that all comments submitted to the
docket, will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov
including any personal information provided. Please see the Privacy Act
heading below.
If you wish to voluntarily submit confidential business
information, you should submit two copies of your
[[Page 71988]]
complete submission electronically to the Chief Counsel, NHTSA, at the
address given below under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT, with one
copy containing the information you claim to be confidential business
information, and one copy from which the claimed confidential business
information has been deleted. In addition, you should submit one copy,
from which you have deleted the claimed confidential business
information, to Docket Management at the address given above under
ADDRESSES. When you send a comment containing information claimed to be
confidential business information to the Chief Counsel, you should
follow the procedures set forth in 49 CFR part 512, and include a cover
letter setting forth the information specified in our confidential
business information regulation, along with the certification required
by the regulation. 49 CFR part 512. In addition, you must clearly mark
the top of each page of a document containing confidential business
information with the word ``CONFIDENTIAL.''
Privacy Act: Anyone is able to search the electronic form
of all comments received into any of our dockets by the name of the
individual submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted
on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may
review DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the Federal Register
published on April 11, 2000 (65 FR 19477-78) or you may visit http://www.dot.gov/privacy.html.
Docket: For access to the docket to read comments
received, go to http://www.regulations.gov or the street address listed
above. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call 202-366-
9322 before coming. Follow the online instructions for accessing the
dockets.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Ritter, Office of Impaired
Driving and Occupant Protection Division, Office of Research and
Program Development, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, NPD-100, Room W44-243, Washington, DC 20590.
Mr. Ritter's phone number is 202-493-0019, and his email address is
[email protected].To submit confidential business information to
the Chief Counsel: Daniel Rabinovitz, Office of Chief Counsel, National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration, [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 2008, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) entered into a Cooperative Agreement with the
Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety (ACTS)--representing the
majority of automobile manufacturers--to assess and develop alcohol
detection technologies that prevent the operation of a vehicle when the
driver's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) exceeds the legal limit.
This collaborative research partnership is known as the Driver Alcohol
Detection System for Safety (DADSS) program. Over the years, the DADSS
program made progressive improvements in the development of two in-
vehicle technologies that target measuring breath or blood alcohol
levels and could help prevent alcohol-impaired drivers from operating
their vehicles: A breath-based and a touch-based system. As the DADSS
technology progressed, NHTSA also became aware of some market-based
driver monitoring systems, some of which may also play a role in
addressing safety risks associated with impaired driving.
NHTSA is interested in better understanding the state of
technologies in impaired driving detection and mitigation, particularly
those targeting alcohol-impaired driving.
Request for Information: This notice requests information to inform
NHTSA about the capabilities, limitations, and maturity of currently
available technologies or those under advanced stages of development
that target impaired driving. The Joint Explanatory Statement
accompanying the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, Public
Law 116-94 (2020), requires NHTSA to facilitate the sharing of this
information and the implementation and integration of impaired driving
technology across the automotive industry. NHTSA plans to conduct
further research on such technologies. To ensure a comprehensive review
of these technologies, NHTSA requests interested parties to submit
information to the Agency on related technologies that are being
researched, developed, or marketed. More specifically, NHTSA seeks
information about technologies that can detect degrees of driver
impairment through a range of approaches including (1) technologies
that can monitor driver action, activity, behavior, or responses, such
as vehicle movements during lane keeping, erratic control, or sudden
maneuvers; (2) technologies that can directly monitor driver impairment
(e.g., breath, touch-based detection through skin); (3) technologies
that can monitor a driver's physical characteristics, such as eye
tracking or other measures of impairment; and (4) technologies or
sensors that aim direct measurement of a driver's physiological
indicators that are already linked to forms of impaired driving (e.g.,
BAC level for alcohol-impaired driving).
NHTSA is interested in information about product specifications;
impairment measurement metrics, methods, and systems; impairment
classification approaches and capabilities; availability of test
results and data that support system capabilities and limitations;
advanced sensors; and other technologies that could be used in a
vehicle to detect impaired drivers.
Input is also requested about whether and how systems have been
validated to date, including human factors issues and user acceptance
of proposed approaches. Further, NHTSA requests information on the
range of active intervention these technologies are targeted to support
in vehicles based on the type and level of impairment estimated, or
measured, by the system with respect to the system's confidence in such
assessment.
Responses most useful to NHTSA would include specific information
about the product capabilities and limitations, the state of its
development, its availability and/or current uses. Examples of useful
information include vendor contact information; information related to
product's marketed capabilities; a description of the approach the
technology uses to detect, estimate, or measure driver impairment;
product specifications, including physical dimensions, accuracy,
tolerance limits, performance characteristics such as temperature
limitations, vehicle integration feasibility, and part-life in the
automotive environment; closest Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the
technology based on best practices described in the General Accounting
Office Technology Readiness Assessment Guide (https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/703694.pdf); any publicly shareable information related to
the cost ranges for the unit, its installation, as well as lifetime
maintenance; any data related to studies that targeted usability and
user acceptance; known technology defeat strategies users may employ;
and impairment detection and impairment differentiation capabilities
(alcohol-impaired, drug-impaired, distracted, drowsy, etc.), including
false-positive and false-negative detection rates. Additionally, NHTSA
would like to know how existing technologies have been evaluated in
laboratory or field tests or in operational deployments and how
positive impairment data was utilized in those studies.
NHTSA encourages commenters to provide information in common file
[[Page 71989]]
formats, such as Microsoft Word, pdf, or plain text and limit responses
to no more than 10 pages, not including appendices.
Authority: 23 U.S.C. 403.
Issued in Washington, DC, under authority delegated by 49 CFR
1.95 and 49 CFR 501.8.
Nanda Narayanan Srinivasan,
Associate Administrator, Research and Program Development.
[FR Doc. 2020-24951 Filed 11-10-20; 8:45 am]
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