The other day, driving home from work, I had an idea. An invention idea. The sort of idea you’d go on public television with and propose it to a bunch of rich business types who will then offer to lend you money in return for a share of the profits or something.

The idea was simple: a small, secure container that you could put your car key in; but it had a built-in breathalyzer and you could only unlock the container if the alcohol content of your breath was below the legal limit. I also reasoned that you might have to include some sort of fingerprint ID check too so that you couldn’t just find a random sober person to open the box for you. The point was to make sure that temptation was removed - even well intentioned people get to the point of drinking where they’re way over the limit but are convinced that they’ll be fine.

Anyway, there’s this article in the news: a proposal to introduce in-car breathalysers into the vehicles of convicted drink drivers that will prevent the engine from starting if they are over the limit (although no mention about how to prevent just getting a sober person to breathe into it for you yet. Is the technology to ID people by breath only - a la Alien Resurrection - available yet?)

Sometimes I amaze even myself with my own genius!