If the human devastation caused by drunk driving is substantially reduced by technology during the next several years, St. Clair will be partially responsible for that accomplishment.

Last year, the college's Mechanical Engineering Technology-Automotive Product Design (APD) program began providing research assistance to an innovative company called Sober Steering Sensors Canada Inc. Founded by a Windsor native, Dr. Dennis Bellehumeur, the company aims to create a sensor-laden steering wheel which gauges a driver's blood-alcohol content. An excessive reading would automatically lock the vehicle's drive-train system, making it impossible to drive. The sensor system could also be installed on all sorts of other vehicles, including boats, snowmobiles and motorcycles.

In mid-May, the shop-floor of St. Clair's Ford Centre for Excellence in Manufacturing was used as the setting for a federal grant presentation, to allow Sober Steering to continue the research needed to eventually bring its product to market. Essex Member of Parliament Jeff Watson (Conservative) announced funding of $1.46 million to the company, from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. The company had previously received a grant of a similar amount from the provincial government.

"The federal investment ... will help stop drunk drivers in their driveways or on our waterways," Watson said. "This investment is about protecting innocent lives, while putting Windsor-Essex families back to work in the economy of the future."

Bringing this project from the idea stage to the factory has required extensive research-and-development. That is where St. Clair entered the picture. It, and the University of Windsor and London's University of Western Ontario, have been working on the nuts and bolts of Bellehumeur's brainstorm for the past couple of years. This past year, a half-dozen APD students in Professor Pawel Lukawski's class studied the "mechanical side" of the process. The St. Clair students - now grads - were Bradley Brosseau, Ian Neubauer, Gerry Nardiello, Rafi Matti and Ralf Janko. While students at the other schools tinkered with the steering wheel's sensors, those at St. Clair created computerized mock-ups of the other end of the system: the locking of the drive-train (for both automatic and manual transmissions).

In the above photo: Sober Steering Senior Vice-President Al Maghnieh and company founder and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dennis Bellehumeur are on the left; Essex MP Jeff Watson is on the right; and in the centre are St. Clair Automotive Product Design Professor Pawel Lukawski, and students/researchers Bradley Brosseau, Ian Neubauer, Gerry Nardiello, Rafi Matti and Ralf Janko.