Vehicle technology that can detect certain types of risky driver behavior will soon be added to the requirements for a safety award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Institute’s president, David Harkey, announced Tuesday during a roundtable on impaired driving organized by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).
Impairment detection is one of several vehicle features addressing risky driver behavior that IIHS plans to add to the criteria for its Top Safety Pick+ award in the coming years. Others include intelligent speed assistance and driver attention systems.
“As part of our 30×30 vision to cut U.S. road deaths 30% by 2030, we are committed to addressing the risky — and often illegal — behavior that underlies most fatalities today,” Harkey said. “One way we plan to do that is to leverage our ratings and award programs to encourage automakers to adopt this new class of safety technology, just as we got them to improve vehicle structures, airbags and collision avoidance systems.”
The Institute’s renewed focus on risky behavior will include continued research on effective policies to discourage such behavior but also technologies that can detect it and possibly intervene. Automakers can expect multiple such features to be added to IIHS award criteria by 2030 or sooner.
Harkey described the initiative during a roundtable held as part of the commemoration of MADD’s 45th anniversary.
“This is a significant milestone for victims and survivors of impaired driving,” said MADD CEO Stacey Stewart. “Incorporating impairment prevention into IIHS Top Safety Pick+ criteria is remarkable progress toward ending drunk driving. We commend IIHS, the gold standard in the U.S. market, for its leadership and look forward to supporting the 30×30 initiative.”
The U.S. made huge strides in reducing drunk driving fatalities in the 1980s and 1990s, in large part thanks to the advocacy of MADD and others for stronger laws and enforcement. However, progress has stalled, and impaired driving deaths represent nearly a third of road fatalities today.
Technology could be a game changer. An IIHS analysis found that if all vehicles were equipped with technology to prevent anyone with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08% or higher from driving, more than 10,000 lives a year would be saved.
Various methods exist to detect impairment. In recent years, work has progressed on a system that analyzes the driver’s exhalations from normal breathing to determine BAC and on a touch-based system that analyzes the skin.
Other possibilities include analyzing a driver’s eye movement or driving behavior for signs of impairment. An advantage of such approaches is that they could detect impairment from any cause, not just alcohol.
Technologies addressing other forms of risky behavior are even further along. Intelligent speed assistance (ISA) detects when drivers exceed the speed limit and can issue warnings or actively intervene. Warning systems are common in today’s vehicles, and many fleets use active forms of ISA. Automakers are also starting to offer driver attention systems to guard against distraction or drowsiness.
ISA will be the first risky-behavior technology to be added to the Top Safety Pick+ criteria. The first IIHS ratings for ISA systems will be issued in 2027.
IIHS ratings have already helped speed adoption of one behavior-related feature. Enhanced belt reminders that are more persistent than the brief warning light and audible signal required by the government have become much more common since IIHS began rating belt reminders in 2022. Nearly three-quarters of 2025 models evaluated earn a good rating, compared with only 16% of 2022 models. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently issued a rule that will require enhanced reminders in all models.
Decades of crashworthiness testing have helped make new vehicles much safer for their own occupants, and more recent crash avoidance evaluations are improving safety for those outside the vehicle. However, research shows that risky driver behavior continues to offset features such as airbags and more protective vehicle structures. As a result, traffic deaths will remain higher in the U.S. than in other advanced countries unless action is taken.
Despite the influence that IIHS ratings and awards can have, Harkey emphasized that addressing risky behavior is not something that the Institute can do alone. Partnerships with safety advocates and the auto industry as well as federal, state and local policymakers will be critical.
“The sooner we can start getting these features into vehicles, the sooner we can make risky-driving deaths a thing of the past,” Harkey said. “But even if we start tomorrow, it will be decades before all vehicles on the road are equipped with these systems. That’s why we also need to continue advancing strong policies to deter impaired driving, speeding and other problem behaviors.”
SOURCE: IIHS
