Aiming to Minimize Alcohol-Impaired Road Fatalities: Utilizing Fairness-Aware and Domain Knowledge-Infused Artificial Intelligence
This work addresses the critical issue of reducing DUI-related road fatalities, which kill approximately one person every 45 minutes in the U.S., by mitigating biases in DUI enforcement through AI, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing fairness-aware methods applied to a specific domain.
The research tackled the problem of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities, which account for about 30% of U.S. traffic deaths, by developing a fairness-aware AI predictor that incorporates domain knowledge to analyze DUI-related fatalities across geographic locations, aiming to allocate policing resources more equitably and efficiently to reduce fatalities.
Approximately 30% of all traffic fatalities in the United States are attributed to alcohol-impaired driving. This means that, despite stringent laws against this offense in every state, the frequency of drunk driving accidents is alarming, resulting in approximately one person being killed every 45 minutes. The process of charging individuals with Driving Under the Influence (DUI) is intricate and can sometimes be subjective, involving multiple stages such as observing the vehicle in motion, interacting with the driver, and conducting Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs). Biases have been observed through racial profiling, leading to some groups and geographical areas facing fewer DUI tests, resulting in many actual DUI incidents going undetected, ultimately leading to a higher number of fatalities. To tackle this issue, our research introduces an Artificial Intelligence-based predictor that is both fairness-aware and incorporates domain knowledge to analyze DUI-related fatalities in different geographic locations. Through this model, we gain intriguing insights into the interplay between various demographic groups, including age, race, and income. By utilizing the provided information to allocate policing resources in a more equitable and efficient manner, there is potential to reduce DUI-related fatalities and have a significant impact on road safety.