This...might actually work. With hopes of cutting down on drunk driving accidents, liquor companies look to link up with self-driving car tech.
Say what you will about self-driving cars not being safe, but there could be some room to actually make the roads safer because of them.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, someone dies every 50 minutes from a drunk driving-related incident. Banning together to help cut this number down are automakers and an unlikely partner: the liquor industry.
Get Home Safe, Y'all
In recent weeks, lobbying for a faster response to getting autonomous cars on the road has been spearheaded by those in both industries. Self-driving cars, while inherently posing a threat due to their not-fully-tested nature at this point, could in fact come in handy for those who plan on tossing back a few belts. Get tipsy, climb into a self-driving car, pass out, get home, don't kill anyone else on the road. Not a bad idea.
This idea is not without some profitability hopes from the liquor industry. One aspect of this push is that if someone has a self-driving car waiting for them outside, they can indeed spend more money on alcoholic beverages and not worry about the dangers of getting behind the wheel. This boost in sales could land the industry a whopping $250 billion, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times.
Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America, which represents about 400 U.S. alcohol brokers, joined with the Coalition for Future Mobility (eh, a so-so name, but it works) to lobby for pushing autonomous cars out to the masses much faster. What's more, the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility signed up its support of a pending bill that would speed up the production and selling of self-driving cars.
Even with steadily declining drunk driving fatality rates, there's still work to be done to get that number (29 deaths per day) down. While self-driving car tech might seem like a trendy thing right now, you may actually be safer in one in years to come.
NEXT: Why People Who Don't Trust Self-Driving Tech Should Still Pay Attention
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