Pennsylvania – October 27, 2026 -- Self-driving cars and in-vehicle prevention technology envisioned under the HALT Drunk Driving Law could keep impaired drivers off the road, says Bob Nulman, a MADD National Ambassador who lost his son to a drunk and drugged driver in 1987.
A 1987 wrong-way crash killed five young men
Nulman's son Dan, a 22-year-old college senior, was riding with four friends on I-95 in Pennsylvania. A 20-year-old impaired driver heading south in the northbound lanes hit their car head-on. All five young men and the driver died. Thirty-nine years later, Nulman says he still feels the loss every day.
Seat belts and airbags faced the same doubts
Nulman recalls a time when people debated turn signals and seat belt laws and questioned the reliability of airbags. He has watched technologies once called unnecessary, intrusive or unreliable become standard features. He hears the same hesitation now about autonomous vehicles and the technologies contemplated under the HALT Drunk Driving Law.
Two technologies address two moments of risk
Nulman calls autonomous vehicles potentially the "ultimate designated driver," a ride home for someone who knows they cannot drive. The HALT technologies target the other moment: they are intended to detect or prevent impaired driving before a vehicle can be operated dangerously.
He speaks from a technology-neutral stance and does not endorse brands or proprietary systems. After riding in advanced vehicles and visiting demonstration floors at recent safety conferences, he says he wonders whether Dan might be alive if such tools had existed in 1987.
Nulman says he hopes to live to see impaired driving become preventable by design.