DENVER -- Heather Poli wasn't quite sure how to react when her friend's cellphone informed her she was drunk.
The 27-year-old ad-agency worker had been at a bar here with her buddies. It was late; she was about to catch a ride home. Then a friend pulled out an iPhone, and the gang took turns entering their weights and what they had imbibed into an app called R-U-Buzzed?
Bing! Up popped estimates of their blood-alcohol content. Ms. Poli's designated driver turned out to be hammered. Ms. Poli wanted to take the wheel herself, but to her indignation, the phone told her no: "I got the big red 'Don't even think about driving' result." Her hangover the next day confirmed the phone's assessment, she says ruefully. "But at the time, it was very surprising." Still, she obeyed the phone and called a cab.
State officials hope tens of thousands of her peers will follow suit tonight.
New Year's Eve may mean champagne toasts and midnight kisses to many Americans, but to law enforcement, it means trouble and, too often, tragedy. The nation records an average of 54 alcohol-related traffic fatalities on New Year's Day. The rest of the year, the average daily toll is 36, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The problem is especially acute among younger drivers. Federal statistics show that 65% of drunk drivers involved in fatal crashes last year were 21 to 34 years old. An additional 17% were under the legal drinking age of 21.
These are precisely the age groups least likely to tune into the radio spots, billboards and newspaper ads traditionally used to warn about the dangers of driving while impaired.
So state officials are trying new -- and, they hope, hip -- ways to reach out to the Twitter-iPhone-Facebook generation. Some safe-driving advocates fear the new strategies, often lighthearted in tone, will undermine the stern message that has been the gold-standard for years: Don't ever drink and drive.
But state officials say they have to meet their target audience on its own turf.
In the fall, Washington state's Traffic Safety Commission spent $50,000 to embed virtual billboards in online videogames. The ads show cuffed hands and the warning, "Drive Hammered, Get Nailed."
Maryland's highway agency posted a YouTube video of heart-rending testimony from relatives whose loved ones were killed by drunk drivers. A Facebook page launched last week by California's Office of Traffic Safety is sponsoring a contest for the best nonalcoholic "mocktail." The winner gets a two-night hotel getaway.
In New York, the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee has been taking to concerts and football games a drunk-driving simulator and goggles that mimic various levels of intoxication. "The kids love it, especially the goggles," says Ken Brown, a spokesman. "It's, 'Look at Johnny, he can't walk straight, hee, hee, hee.' But it gets the point across."
In Colorado, the state Department of Transportation hosts an interactive Web site that shows partygoers where to park their cars safely overnight and points them to bars that hand out vouchers for free taxi rides.
But officials were looking for something more dynamic. When their marketing team, Webb PR, suggested an iPhone buzz-o-meter, they bit, spending $8,000 to develop the program.
In the month since its debut, the free app -- which is designed to look like a slot machine -- has been downloaded nearly 40,000 times from Apple's online store, with a noticeable spike in traffic on Christmas Day.
The calculator comes with a disclaimer that it isn't definitive: Impairment can vary greatly depending on how much drinkers have eaten, whether they are on medication and how much sleep they have had.
Still, based on the user's input of weight, gender, hours drinking and a tally of beer, wine and liquor consumed, the calculator spits out a blood-alcohol content number that looks very precise -- for example, 0.058%. It's accompanied by a color-coded message: "No hangover expected," printed in sober gray; "You're buzzed!" in yellow; or, in cautionary red: "Don't even think about it!...Designate a sober driver."
In major Colorado cities, an added feature uses GPS technology to let the user call a cab with a tap of the phone.
Pocket breath-analysis devices, some so small they fit on keychains, have been sold for some time, for as little as $15, though experts warn that they aren't always accurate. There are also several online blood-alcohol calculators. Colorado officials hope that bringing the issue to the iPhone will make it even easier -- and more socially acceptable -- for young adults to keep tabs on their intoxication.
But some have found another use: "It could definitely become a drinking game," says Brad Brown, a 23-year-old bank teller.
Mr. Brown pulled out the app at a recent party and started punching in each drink as he downed it: One shot of vodka. Two. Three. A mixed drink. A beer. It became a challenge, he says, to watch the blood-alcohol content climb and see when he could tip the color bar from gray to yellow to red. He didn't drive home that night, but he credits his common sense, not the app. "It's just a cool thing to mess around with," he says. "It gives you another excuse to drink."
That is worrisome to safe-driving advocates. Another concern: Users might trust their phones to pronounce them fit to drive when they really aren't. A blood alcohol content of 0.058% is below the legal limit of 0.08% but can still slow reaction time and blur judgment.
Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, says the app may undermine her group's message that the safest approach is never to drive after drinking. "Reaching young people is a great idea," she says -- but depending on a phone to judge intoxication isn't.
Then there is the question of whether revelers will accurately recall and input their alcohol consumption. Or whether they will remember to consult their phones. Tim Kilgannon, who owns a Denver bar called the Blake Street Vault, has doubts. "If someone's that messed up, they're never going to pull out an app," he says.
Social networking is also a double-edged sword: Drivers in some areas have begun using Twitter, text messages and iPhone apps to broadcast the locations of sobriety checkpoints, allowing those who have been drinking to choose another route.
For all its shortcomings, the new technology does at least raise awareness of drunk driving, says Christy Kruzick, a 29-year-old TV producer in Denver.
"When you're out at a bar, no one wants to talk about it," Ms. Kruzick says "It's too serious. You don't want to bring the party down."
Yet when she pulled out the iPhone app at a bar the other night, her friends all clamored to take a turn -- and the subject was suddenly very much on the table.
Ms. Poli, who was taken aback when her friend's phone pronounced her drunk, sees another advantage: She's more apt to listen to her phone, she says, than to a friend who tries to take away her keys. The app "felt very solid and mathematical and trustworthy," Ms. Poli says. "And nonjudgmental."
Write to Stephanie Simon at stephanie.simon@wsj.com
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