How accurate are breathalyzers?
If they’re going to give harsh punishments, they should be as accurate as possible, but they wouldn’t give me the more accurate blood test when I was arrested. And a .08 for me can affect me differently than it does other people. My arresting officer said I didn’t seem drunk, but I admitted to having a few drinks so he had to go through the process. He almost let me go. Maybe that blood test would have put me under the limit. Unfortunately, if you blow over a .08 then you’re automatically convicted, and no amount of testimony will get you out of a conviction in my state. I’m surprised you’re not nervous about mandatory sentencing, considering your other political views. A mandatory sentence would give me the same punishment as someone who blew a .20. Are we saying that all cases are exactly the same and that judges can’t be trusted to give a just punishment? As an aside, are you in favor of the three strikes and you’re out laws? I want to stop people from drunk driving, but I wrestle w
even the expensive ones used by cops are not the final say when they are acquiring evidence against you. They must give a more accurate test (blood or urine), or they can’t use the breathalizer as evidence. They are not extremely accurate. Think about it. It’s purporting to measure “Blood Alcohol Content” but you’re breathing into it, they are not even looking at your blood. It’s indirect and they’ve tried to calibrate alcohol vapor fumes to BAC, and correlation studies have shown that there is correlation, but it’s not a good predictor of actual amount. It’s not against the law to drive while have alcohol on your breath is what i’m trying to say. It is against the law to have a certain arbitrary percentage of alcohol in your blood though. Some people use a lot of mouthwash (35% alcohol) and don’t swallow a drop of it. But they would still fail a breathalyzer. Other substances are almost identical to alcohol from the tester’s point of view, but not alcohol at all in reality.
With more than a little federal coercion, all states have now passed laws making it a criminal offense to drive with .08% alcohol in your blood. And most people suspected of violating that law are given breath tests to determine their blood-alcohol concentration (BAC). The breathalyzer will take a small sample of the suspect’s breath and estimate how much alcohol is in it — and, then, estimate how much may be in the blood. And what that machine says is pretty much the end of it. There will be no second tests. There will be no cross-examination of the machine. Just how accurate and reliable are these machines that we have permitted them to become judge and jury? To begin with, scientists universally recognize an inherent error in breath analysis, generally of plus or minus .01% in the reading. That means that if everything is working perfectly (an unlikely scenario), a .10% breathalyzer test result can be anywhere from .09% to .11%. This has been acknowledged by courts across the count
