JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – New devices that help track drunk drivers are likely on the way and one local mother who lost her son to an impaired driver said they can’t come soon enough.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law requires new cars to have alcohol detection devices.
Recently, the National Transportation Safety Board also recommended them in all cars.
Davika Puls lost her son Nathan Schmidt after a driver who was drunk and high slammed into his car in October 2018. He was stopped at a stoplight in Orange Park, working his shift as a delivery driver.
The crash caused a three-car collision. Schmidt was 23 years old.
“This is what’s going to happen if you drink and drive,” Puls said. “You will either put your name on a headstone, or you’re going to put someone else’s name on a headstone.”
That driver is serving more than a decade in prison, but Puls lost much more.
“That’s probably the worst moment of my life, is walking in and seeing your child covered in a white sheet, with tubes and a C-collar on a gurney, gone,” she said.
Schmidt was about nine months shy of graduating college with a radiology degree.
Davika said Nathan, the oldest of five children, was adored not only by her but by his dad and younger siblings as well.
“He grew up to be a kind, loving, caring person,” she said. “There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t have done for somebody else.”
Lawmakers and federal officials are working to make sure another family doesn’t have to experience something like this.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed last year makes automakers install mandatory alcohol detection systems in cars.
The devices would be passive, meaning the driver doesn’t have to do anything for them to work.
They would stop a car from moving if they sense that a driver may be drunk.
“If this technology will stop someone from driving drunk and killing somebody and killing themselves, then I am all for it,” Puls said.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving spearheaded this effort.
“This has the possibility to eliminate drunk driving, period. That’s good news,” said Judy Cotton with MADD Northeast Florida. “This technology, once it’s in all vehicles, which will take a very long time to roll out into the fleet obviously, it will save probably about 9,400 lives annually.”
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has three years to figure out how the devices will be implemented.
In the meantime, Puls said she will continue to warn students, parents and anyone who will listen about the dangers of drunk driving.
“I can’t save a room full of 3,000, but maybe I can save one. That’s all I want, is to save one person. One person at a time,” said Puls.
Federal officials say new cars with this type of technology could roll off the assembly line in 2026 or 2027.