Up to 40 percent of road deaths around the world are thought to be caused by alcohol.

世界上40%以上的交通死亡事故都由醉驾造成。

But one day, cars could detect whether a driver’s voice sounds drunk, to stop them from driving and prevent accidents.

但也许有一天，车辆可以根据驾驶员的声音自动检测他们饮酒与否，从而阻止其驾车、预防交通事故发生。

Researchers in Germany have created the first library of drunk speech patterns, which could be used to predict drunkenness by listening for vocal¹ cues.

德国研究人员创立了世界上第一个“醉后语音模式”图书馆。这样通过分析语音信息就能预测驾驶员是否处于醉酒状态。

Called the Alcohol Language Corpus, the database was made between 2007 and 2009 by giving people too much alcohol to drink, before recording² conversations conducted in a stopped car, where the drunk person was sitting in the passenger seat.

这个名为“酒后语言语料库”的数据库建于2007年到2009年间。实验场所是在一辆没有开动的汽车上，大量饮酒后的受测者坐在乘客席上，他们说的话都会被录下来。

There are currently conversations from 162 German men and women in the publicly-available audio database.

该音频数据库对大众开放，目前的对话资料来自162名德国男性和女性。

Experts at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Institute of Legal Medicine in the city collected the data, FastCompany reported.

快公司》（Fast Company）杂志报道，这些数据由慕尼黑大学（Ludwig Maximilian University）专家和慕尼黑市法医学研究协会（the Institute of Legal Medicine）共同收集。

From this, an algorithm that is capable of detecting whether someone is drunk by listening in on slurring³ speech patterns, has been created by computer scientists at Queens College and Columbia University.

基于这些数据，来自皇后学院（Queens College）和哥伦比亚大学（Columbia University）的计算机科学家们开发出一种测醉程序，这样通过测听模糊语音模式就能判断驾驶员是否醉酒。

They found that they could detect drunken speech patterns much like identifying an accent.

他们发现检测醉后语音模式的过程与识别口音类似。

Drunken speech hall marks include stammering⁵ and stuttering. Voices also tend to rise in pitch and words begin to slur⁴, they said.

他们指出，醉酒的话语特征有说话结结巴巴、音调升高、含糊不清等等。

It is hoped that the software could be used alongside devices such as locks and immobilizers to make it impossible for people to drive when drunk – perhaps by asking them a few questions while analyzing⁶ the driver’s voice.

人们希望这种软件能和车锁、防盗系统等设备一起使用以杜绝醉驾——或许可以通过向驾驶员提问来分析其语音。

‘The cars themselves could listen to the driver, detect that the potential driver is intoxicated⁷, and prevent the car from starting,’ the researchers explained.

研究人员说：“车辆能自动监听驾驶员说话，测出其醉酒状态，并阻止车辆发动。”

However, the safety system may be a few years away, because the algorithm to detect drunkenness is typically only right around three quarters of the time.

但是，此安全系统的应用可能需要好几年，因为目前这个程序测醉的准确度只有75%左右。

‘That means, you want to go and drive your car, one in three times we're going to say you're drunk. That's bad for a product,’ Professor Andrew Rosenberg, of Queens College New York (CUNY) said.

“那就意味着你需要开车时，三次中就有一次车辆误判你醉酒。那可不是个好产品。”纽约皇后大学的安德鲁·罗森博格（Andrew Rosenberg）教授说道。

The next step is to add more languages to the library so that more experts can use the public library for their own research.

下一步要做的是添加更多语种到图书馆中，让更多专家能使用这写公共资源进行各自的研究。