This 22-year-old Class X graduate has invented a smart alcohol detector for better road safety

Hyderabad resident Sai Teja has developed a smart detector for better road safety. It can sense if a person has consumed alcohol and can stop the car.

Driving under the influence of alcohol is a legal offense in India as well as in many other countries. But we still come across several instances where people get behind the wheel after drinking. While many people may argue that it is no harm, we have to keep in mind that when putting those keys in the ignition, road safety suffers and we are risking others' lives.

To put an end to this problem of drunken driving and promote better road safety, Hyderabad-based Sai Teja (22) has come up with a unique solution. A Class X graduate, he has invented an alcohol detector that can stop the vehicle’s engine if it detects that the driver is under the influence of alcohol.

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The device can be placed on the dashboard and is capable of sensing whether the driver has consumed alcohol or not. In addition to restricting the car’s engine, it also sends an SMS to the configured mobile numbers, reports The Quint.

Explaining more about the detector, Teja told ANI:

“I stopped studying after Class X due to some reasons, but was interested in electrons and used to gain knowledge from the internet. I learnt to code from the internet, and invented a new alcohol detector, which restricts the vehicle engine to start if the driver has consumed more than 30 percent of alcohol.”

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Better road safety

He further added, "An SMS is sent to the contact numbers that are saved by the micro-controller in the device, along with the vehicle number. It took me 15 days to invent this device, which has been priced at Rs 2,500.”

Reports show that road safety is dismal in the country, suggesting that the total number of road accidents caused due to the intake of drugs/alcohol was 14,894 in 2016, leading to 6,131 fatalities.

If Teja’s device gets a market, it can help cut down the number of fatal road accidents in our country.

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