Delhi Traffic Police wanted badly this app to keep check on drunk driving on Delhi roads especially in winter. An app can tell whether you’re too drunk to drive by looking into your eyes.
The Breathaleyes app detects rapid eye movement caused by drinking using an iPhone camera and tells you how drunk you are. Its maker claims the test is accurate to within 0.02 per cent of a breathalyser test: the ‘HGN’ test, tracking horizontal eye movements caused by alcohol, is one that’s admissible in court in several American states. The technical term for rapid eye movement after drinking is ‘Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus’ (HGN).
The makers of Breathaleyes application describe this as a condition of the eye indicated by the involuntary rhythmic oscillating motion of the pupil left and right across the horizontal field of view.
This application uses a mobile phone’s camera function to take a picture of someone looking as far as they can to one side, it then measures any tiny movement the pupil is making. The kind of breath analyzer the police use on motorists only work 20 minutes after the consumption of alcohol, but this app works instantly.
But road safety experts warn this hi-tech version of blow-in-the-bag testers might let you down. “If you test when you leave a pub car park, your blood alcohol levels will rise for about 40 minutes – so you could pass a BreathalEyes test, then fail the real thing half an hour later”, said Andrew Howard, the Automobile Association’s Head of Road Safety.
Whether this app will be successful or not, only coming time will tell. But to make it successful, our traffic cops must have iPhone, which will be herculean task for Delhi Police to get and even if they get it, it will require lot of wisdom by our rude cops to use them.
There are lot of devices to check drunken driving on Delhi roads, which result in lot of accidents, but our traffic cops do not have the resources to use the available technologies. Hope they will embrace state of the art technologies to minimise mayhem on Delhi roads.
