A sober driver in Arlington, TX using an ignition interlock device was the cause of a recent crash that killed an 18-year old girl, raising some questions about the role of interlock retests.
The driver was conducting what is known as a “rolling retest,” where every 15 to 45 minutes (depending on your state), the driver has 3 to 6 minutes (again, depending on your state) to pull over and perform a breath test to show that he’s not drinking while driving. In this case, the driver did not pull over, but breathed into the device while the car was moving. He hit another car as it pulled out of a driveway. Blake Cowan, 31, claimed he was distracted by the breath test. He has not yet been charged in the death of teenager Lexxy Butler, who died of her injuries.
Publications such as Jalopnik, in reporting on the story, raised questions about the role of interlock retests.
Under Texas law, the driver must perform a rolling retest every 15 minutes. Cowan said he looked down for 3-4 seconds for the test and never saw the Toyota backing out of a driveway, according to ABC Affiliate station WFAA
Car audio dealer Harry Lichtman of Depot Auto Sound, White Plains, NY said he’s careful to instruct customers to pull over for the rolling retest, just to avoid incidents such as Cowan’s.
“I say, ‘Let’s talk about driver safety….If you are capable, pull off to a shoulder or exit. If on a side road, pull onto the curb. The car will never shut off. After 3 minutes, if for some reason you can’t find safety, the horn will go off and the lights will flash.’” He added, “I know if I don’t say those words and they get into an accident, they will blame me. So I say, ‘safety first.’”
Cowan had been arrested for DWI twice, with the second incident resulting in the installation of the breathalyzer, said WFAA, citing court documents.
MADD said, ignition interlocks have prevented 2.3 million attempts to drive drunk. “Our hearts go out to Alexis Butler’s family and friends. We are aware that an investigation is underway to confirm accounts that the driver was conducting a ‘rolling retest’ of his breath to ensure that he was still sober. Typically, these rolling retests are required every 45 minutes, and the driver is given six minutes to find a safe place to stop the vehicle and blow into the device. MADD is unaware of any instances of rolling retests causing a tragic and fatal crash like this,” said a spokesman adding, “MADD advocates for the use of ignition interlocks because these devices have saved countless lives over the past 10 years…”
A Northeast representative for interlock device maker Draeger said in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York rolling retests are required every 15 minutes and in Maryland, the retests are at random intervals between 5 and 15 minutes. We do not know the brand of interlock device used by Cowan.
We changed the former headline based on complaints about it being sensational.
We have been installing these devices for a number of years and have worked with various different manufacturers along the way and in every single model when the retest notification alerts the driver all that has to be done is to pick up the device and blow into it. Even then, the device will alert the driver with an audible “beep” if the test is successful or a distinct “buzz/humm” if unsuccessful. Anyone who has been driving around with the device for more then a week could easily perform this without getting distracted. Now, if the device is under a seat, between the seats, or some un-reachable location then that’s on the driver and not the device. So, I had read the story before it appeared here and still feel we are not getting the complete story.
Are we all going to ignore the fact that this girl backed out of a driveway into oncoming traffic? The guy that hit her is going to get the book thrown at him, already has in the court of public opinion and probably will in front of a judge, simply for three things: 1) Young, pretty, blonde girl; 2) She died in the accident; 3) He has DUIs on his record. Take away that context and she’s more at fault than he is. It’s a terrible loss, I get that, but had she backed into traffic and been hit by literally anyone else this wouldn’t be news.
I think the rolling retest is a fantastic feature that accomplishes three things. The first benefit is that it tests the driver to make certain he or she is not impaired due to alcohol consumption. The second benefit of the rolling retest is it verifies that the driver condition hasn’t changed since the start. Thirdly, it helps verify the driver is the authorized interlock user.
I think anyone that claims that the interlock destraction was the cause of the crash, is either incompetent to drive for other reasons or one that would find a way to blame anything other than themselves regardless of the actual circumstance. Simply telling people not to drink and drive or imposing hefty penalties doesn’t help an impaired person to make a correct choices. Innocent people suffer substantial losses directly related to poor decisions made by intoxicated people. The general public needs to be protected from impaired drivers and interlock devices do a great job in preventing those that have made mistakes in the past from doing the same again.
The alternative for those that don’t agree or simply don’t want to be inconvenienced is simple. They shouldn’t be authorized to operate a vehicle. If they want to drive have them prove that they aren’t a hazard.
I used to install and calibrate these, I do not drink at that time I did smoke and I can tell you tobacco use inside the car will make you fail a test, also mouthwash and other things.
My point is why make none cousmers deal with this junk. Lets just punish the people who thawart the system and drive drunk. You drink and drive, you lost your car and driving privliges. But for this to be law your car has to be running and moving on public roads this won’t apply to persons in a car with an open container but the cars not running. They just get fined for that.
Length of loss 10 years first offense. If your caught driving in that 10 years you’ll never get your driving privliges back and could spend 10 years in jail. One guy we had must have failed every test with his breath machine, beat it on the dash and smashed it as well as tampered with it, besides this what’s to stop them from driving a different car without one of these systems. Achoalisim is an illness people need treatment not gadgets. The more crap you stick in a car taking the drivers attention the worse he will drive. Lets face it someone who drives drunk isn’t making good decision in the first place. They need to detox.
I’ll be honest I drove way to drunk 35 years ago now I look back I see it was pretty dam stupid. People who drive drunk need mental evaluation and care to correct the problems not some electronic eves dropping device to spy on you.
Come on CEOutlook. I expect this from Fox News, Facebook or Yahoo. But you’re better than this. You know damn well that headline is misleading. The accident was caused by distracted driving 10000%. Quit this business or I’m unsubscribing.
I agree with your statement, about the title being VERY misleading. It’s that kind of sensationalistic headline excuse for journalism in this day and age, that mis-informs an ignorant public, to do any smart investigation of their own. People will see that headline, and whether they read the story or not, already have a biased view of the content. The distraction could be caused by a cell phone, a child in the vehicle, a chime and warning light in the cluster, or any number of things. To recklessly report the breathalyzer device as the possible cause in the HEADLINE, represents showboat and click-bait journalism, and frankly Amy, I’ve held you to a much better journalistic standard than this, for all of these years of CE Outlook. This headline implies the unit, manufacturer of the unit, and the installing shop, are all, are party to, or are individually to blame for this accident. Maybe it’s just the driver, maybe it was the teenage girl not checking her mirrors before backing out.
To report it in your fashion, I think is very harmful to us and our industry, in the manner you’ve done it. I get what you may have been trying to achieve, but a poor decision tonword your headline this way, made me angrier at YOU, and not the DUI miscreant in the story.
I can see your point about the headline and I’m changing it. However, if you read the two articles that are sources for the story, you will see that the incident has raised questions about the nature of rolling retests. And there is such a wide variation in the actual laws. Stopping every 5 to 15 minutes as in MD, might be problematic.
It seems pretty obvious this driver was distracted and has a history or dui’s. In the first paragraph it says the driver did not pull over and breathed into the device while the car was moving. This is clearly not a fault of the breathalyzer device and very misleading title for this article. The device is not what cause the accident. The distracted driver not properly pulling over and performing the rolling test improperly is what caused the terrible accident.
So that makes ok for someone to back out and in front of a moving vehicle that in fact has the right of way . just sayin