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駕造成。

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

但也許有一天，車輛可以根據駕駛員的聲音自動檢測他們飲酒與否，從而阻止其駕車、預防交通事故發生。

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

德國研究人員創立了世界上第一個“醉后語音模式”圖書館。這樣通過分析語音信息就能預測駕駛員是否處于醉酒狀態。

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

這個名為“酒后語言語料庫”的數據庫建于2007年到2009年間。實驗場所是在一輛沒有開動的汽車上，大量飲酒后的受測者坐在乘客席上，他們說的話都會被錄下來。

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

該音頻數據庫對大眾開放，目前的對話資料來自162名德國男性和女性。

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）雜志報道，這些數據由慕尼黑大學（Ludwig Maximilian University）專家和慕尼黑市法醫學研究協會（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 slurring speech patterns, has been created by computer scientists at Queens College and Columbia University.

基于這些數據，來自皇后學院（Queens College）和哥倫比亞大學（Columbia University）的計算機科學家們開發出一種測醉程序，這樣通過測聽模糊語音模式就能判斷駕駛員是否醉酒。

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

他們發現檢測醉后語音模式的過程與識別口音類似。

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

他們指出，醉酒的話語特征有說話結結巴巴、音調升高、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 analyzing the driver’s voice.

人們希望這種軟件能和車鎖、防盜系統等設備一起使用以杜絕醉駕——或許可以通過向駕駛員提問來分析其語音。

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

研究人員說：“車輛能自動監聽駕駛員說話，測出其醉酒狀態，并阻止車輛發動。”

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，此安全系統的應用可能需要好幾年，因為目前這個程序測醉的準確度只有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.

“那就意味著你需要開車時，三次中就有一次車輛誤判你醉酒。那可不是個好產品。”紐約皇后大學的安德魯·羅森博格（Andrew Rosenberg）教授說道。

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語種到圖書館中，讓更多專家能使用這寫公共資源進行各自的研究。

（翻譯：xysweetxy 編輯：Julie）