Plain and simple: driving while intoxicated isn’t smart — to put it nicely. But while that may be easy to understand while sober, it can be less obvious for individuals to recognize and understand when drunk. It can even be more frustrating to convince a friend or loved one of how drunk they are, that despite what they may think they don’t actually drive better when drunk, and get them to hand over their keys in the process.
Thankfully the BreathalEyes is here to help. While there may very well be an app for this or that, the BreathalEyes app, apart from being a very clever play on words, is probably more useful and potentially lifesaving than a great deal of others available.
For anyone who has ever been pulled over and given a field sobriety test, or watched an episode of Cops, one of the methods employed by law enforcement is to test for Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) before they slap some steel around your wrists and haul you off.
But what exactly is HGN? No it isn’t some home and garden channel, HGN is the involuntary jerk and twitches your eyes make when the iris reaches an angle of about 45 degrees while your head remains forward. Cops generally administer such tests and check for HGN in the field with a pen or some variation of that.
What the BreathalEyes does is really to help your friends (and in doing so help you) conduct your own HGN test before you make the poor decision of driving drunk. The app utilizes the iPhone 4’s camera to detect the subjects eye movement by asking the person to look as far as possible in one direction while the camera monitors for any erratic or involuntary eye movement. After that, the app uses the collected data to gauge the blood alcohol level of the person being tested. To ensure a level of accuracy, the developers of BreathalEyes have conducted tests alongside an actual breathalyzer and found it to carry an accuracy range of 0.02% – 0.17% (+/- .02%) BAC.
Of course BreathalEyes isn’t perfect and its creators have placed numerous disclaimers to save them from any legal trouble that may arise. Still, the slight inconvenience of administering the test and purchasing the $0.99 the app costs is a small price to pay given the much steeper price one might later pay for driving drunk.
The BreathalEyes app is available now on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S for $0.99 with an Android version in the works for later this year.
[Source: Wired]
Yeah I still rather the phone instead of cop
If you have been drinking enough to think you need to usethis app, then you HAVE been and shouldn’t drive regardless of what it says.
The eye test is the FIRST thing cops test…because it is hte most obvious. As in, they know you are drunk right away. However, a very significant portion of people arrested for DUI do fine in that test. It is only the catch the obvious ones. So this app is going to give a lot of false negatives.
Tech”God”? You sound a little hubristic and ignorant of the facts. Have fun with that.
Ignorant of what facts? Because I disagree with you and pointed out your obvious neurosis and paranoia to information sharing, which actually seems nonexistent in this case? Or maybe I’m ignorant and hubristic because of my fake Internet name? Yeah you’re right that TOTALLY discredits me….
What people should and shouldn’t do are rarely in step with what people ACTUALLY do. If the app helps people from doing stupid stuff like driving drunk then mission accomplished.
Two things:
1. If you’ve been drinking, even above a small amount, you shouldn’t be driving. Period. Take a cab.
2. Cops, while looking for HGN, don’t give a shit if you pass or fail; most will throw you in cuffs anyway. I’ve known people to get arrested for a DUI for blowing below the legal limit and then get processed after the fact.
We need people to embrace this in Australia, but it is something all motorists should consider *thunbs up* ^___^
If you need an app to tell you whether or not you’re ok to be driving, chances are you already know you shouldn’t be driving.
What people should and shouldn’t do are rarely in step with what people ACTUALLY do. If the app helps people from doing stupid stuff like driving drunk then mission accomplished.
yes, for you idiots that want a digital record of your BAC listed on some server somewhere (or stored on your phone) this is a great idea.
(and cops can confiscate your phone and not only prove by their own methods that you were driving drunk, but that you knew about it before you got behind the wheel)
I don’t think it really matters to Cops whether you are driving drunk on purpose or on accident. You sound a little paranoid. Besides, you can always delete the app before they confiscate it.