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It doesn't look like this is an error that will cause a totally sober person to fail a breathalyzer test. If you're worried about the accuracy of the machine, y

It doesn't look like this is an error that will cause a totally sober person to fail a breathalyzer test. If you're worried about the accuracy of the machine, you can also submit to a blood test: https://duilawyerlosangeles.com/dui-lawyer-advice-breathalyzer-vs-blood-test/ https://duilawyerlosangeles.com/dui-lawyer-advice-breathalyz... This is one issue where I'm firmly on the side of the police until there's evidence that faulty breathalyzers are putting totally innocent people in jail. If you choose to get into the driver's seat of a car, you should not be anywhere near the legal BAC limit. By the time an officer asks you to submit to a BAC test, they've already observed enough behavior to make them believe that you may be a danger to others. Plan ahead so that you don't have to worry about leaving your car somewhere. Call an Uber or a Lyft. Get a friend to drive you home. Moderate your drinking. Take some time, go for a long walk. On popular holidays in many places, you can even call AAA for a free ride home, even if you're not a member. Just please don't drive home on the hope that a defense lawyer can argue on your behalf that breathalyzers aren't reliable.

Clubber 8y ago
When someone blows a 0.08 when it really is a 0.07, that would be putting an innocent person in jail.
- simion314 8y ago
  Don't you have the right to ask for blood tests where you live?
  - Clubber 8y ago
    I don't know, but I don't like needles, so I probably wouldn't. That's not really the point though.
  - DennisP 8y ago
    Getting a blood test means either going to the police station, or letting a cop stick a needle in you on the side of the road. We should do whatever we can do avoid making innocent people do either one.
    - simion314 8y ago
      I agree with you, but the OP comment was that you would end up in jail, I think here in Romania if you are caught you will have to submit to blood tests so it is determined precisely your alcohol level in blood, depending on the level you may escape free since you are allowed to have a small level.
    - snark42 8y ago
      > Getting a blood test means either going to the police station, or letting a cop stick a needle in you on the side of the road. You have to go to the station anyway, the Portable BAC they use roadside is inadmissible in court, they give you a more accurate test at the station if you fail roadside. Having a nurse available to take a blood sample instead shouldn't be unreasonable.
  - jdboyd 8y ago
    In PA, if you try that, you will have to pay a minimum fine of $500 and have your license suspended for a minimum of 1 year, even if the blood tests show no intoxication. If you have no previous DUI convictions, theses penalties may be worse than being found inaccurately to be over the limit.
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  If you got into the drivers seat at 0.07 you are doing something wrong. Unless breathalysers detect alcohol when none exists, then I think knowing they are "10% eitherway" is a good caution.
  - trentmb 8y ago
    > If you got into the drivers seat at 0.07 you are doing something wrong. Then change the law so .07 instead of .08.
  - rascul 8y ago
    > If you got into the drivers seat at 0.07 you are doing something wrong. Not legally.
  - hbnyc 8y ago
    How can you justify this from a legal standpoint? Personal ethics be damned, we've established that 0.08 is the line. 0.07 is not above or equal to that. You can't say someone is in the wrong because they are close, but not on the other side, of something binary.
    - thaumaturgy 8y ago
      What's happening in this thread right now is simply a difference of moral frameworks. On one side, you have people for whom right and wrong is defined by the law: if it's legal, then it's right, and if it's illegal, it's wrong. Therefore as long as people are making decisions that are consistent with law, they are fine. On the other side, you have people for whom right and wrong is a fuzzier judgement of consequences somewhat independent of the law. If it's dangerous but legal, it's still dangerous. If it's illegal and not dangerous, then maybe it shouldn't be enforced by law. It's sadly unlikely that either side is going to find any agreement with the other. I'm firmly in the second camp on this particular issue: I don't care that the law says that anything up to .08 is okay; if you're close enough to .08 that a marginal error in a device could make it illegal, then I wish you weren't driving. Hell, if I'm out, I'll give just about anyone a free ride home, and take them back to their car in the morning, if that's what it takes to keep them from driving "a little bit" drunk.
- thaumaturgy 8y ago
  In case it wasn't clear from my comment, I'm less willing to argue for the innocence of a person who was at .07, or .075, or .0799, because of the potentially serious consequences of their decisions and the number of convenient alternatives they had available. That's my personal position on this. It's consistent with my own moral framework. I get that there's a valid counterargument from a position of law-and-order morality. But I've also had friends who were first responders to a horrifying drunk driver collision. Trying to keep innocent people from bleeding out on the side of the road messes you up for a while. It's not a victimless crime. You can get from .08 to .06 by walking around for an hour. If you think you might be close enough to borderline, go take a walk.
  - ironjunkie 8y ago
    We are in a state of law. you cannot argue that a person is innocent but "not innocent enough" because they came too close to the fixed limit. A person is over it and guilty or under it and innocent. As said above, if you think this limit is too high, fight to have it lowered but please don't blur the lines of the law based on your personal convictions.
  - lolsal 8y ago
    > In case it wasn't clear from my comment, I'm less willing to argue for the innocence of a person who was at .07, or .075, or .0799, because of the potentially serious consequences of their decisions and the number of convenient alternatives they had available. Do you feel the same way about getting ticketed for Speeding when going 55mph in a 55mph zone? Going 56mph is technically speeding you know and 55mph is very close to 56 mpg. 55mph and 56mph are arguably equivalently dangerous. A limit is a limit. It's a discrete, unchanging, unambiguous, line in the sand that once crossed warrants consequences. That's why we codify these things into laws.
  - driverdan 8y ago
    Your moral framework and personal position is not what should be used to determine guilt. One issue is that some places set a very low standard, one lower than evidence shows to effect driving ability. Being borderline with unnecessarily low limits means the person is not impaired.
- DanBC 8y ago
  If someone stops drinking, then gets in a car, then an hour later blows a 0.07 they were probably over when they started driving.
  - lolsal 8y ago
    Innocent until proven guilty. Please don't pollute our legal system with "probably".
  - dpark 8y ago
    Ignoring for a moment the issue with “probably”, this is also just not true. If you stop drinking and immediately get in a car to drive, your BAC is increasing while you are driving for some time. It’s entirely possible that your BAC is higher an hour after you stop drinking than immediately after, depending on how much you drank and how quickly.
- thucydidesofusa 8y ago
  This is specific to my jurisdiction but one can get a DUI so long as their BAC > 0. The .08 threshold exists because it's presumed that anyone with a BAC > .08 is too impaired to drive. The authorities have to demonstrate that individuals with BACs between 0 and .08 are impaired. A person driving around my local roads with a .07 BAC isn't necessarily innocent, they may well be impaired and a danger to themselves and others on the road.
DennisP 8y ago
That's excellent advice for personal behavior. However, the justice system should enforce the law as it stands, as accurately as reasonably possible. If the legal limit is too high, we should fix that in the legislature, not use faulty equipment to punish people who didn't break the law; someone who's a bit under the legal limit is in fact "totally innocent" according to the law. I once was given a BAC after being stopped for a faulty tail light on a Saturday night. I'd had a single glass of wine two hours before, and at that point was completely sober, wide awake, and paying attention to my driving. The officer didn't mention any other reason for stopping me, and seemed disappointed when my BAC test was clear.
- grepthisab 8y ago
  I had a similar experience. Went out, had a single drink over about a three hour period, drove home, got pulled over for speeding. I think given the time of evening they just assumed I had been drinking. They gave me a BAC and officer also seemed disappointed it was clear. If I had had more than two or three drinks over the same period of time (which would have made me still well under legal limit), I may have requested a blood test out of an abundance of caution and to not rely on a possibly-inaccurate BAC to determine the (I’m told) very expensive consequences of getting a DUI.
- matwood 8y ago
  > The officer didn't mention any other reason for stopping me, and seemed disappointed when my BAC test was clear. This is way more common than it should be. Dash cams have finally helped this situation somewhat, but when I used to work late in college I got pulled over way more than I should have for BS reasons. "You touched the white line", "Nope". "You were swerving", "No again". Finally a judge started throwing out all DUI cases without a dash cam and the police who dragged their feet for years after being mandated to install dash cams suddenly got it done. No one should ever be driving after drinking, but the police also need to follow the law.
dzhiurgis 8y ago
“Nice” thing about blood draw is that it’s going to take some time to get to a clinic, letting you loose 0.1 promile due to metabolism (or gain if you actually had a drink just before leaving). Sometimes you can even probably find ways to drag time... Don’t drink and drive tho.
- jfaat 8y ago
  In court they will just extrapolate from the blood results what your BAC would have been when pulled over, so this isn’t a silver bullet. Not drinking before driving definitely is though!
sandworm101 8y ago
Take this from a lawyer: Even if you are drunk, talk to a lawyer before the blood test. There are scenarios where, without drinking more, your blood alcohol can increase between the time you are pulled out of the car and the time your blood is drawn. Mix alcohol and food and there can be significant delays between drinking, breath alcohol measurements, blood alcohol measurement, and actual intoxication. Remember that the crime involves having a blood/breath alcohol level WHILE DRIVING. "Drinking and driving" alone doesn't make you guilty. I get very worried whenever "evidence" is taken far away from the offense. I've even heard about people who, after being arrested/released based on breath alcohol, are allowed to continue drinking and then have their blood drawn. If you are stopped and are given a breathalyzer, pass or fail, do not drink anything for at least 24 hours. You never know what the cops are thinking. They may be back. They may test you again in 15 minutes. Don't go back to the party. If the cops test you, your night is over.
- jrjarrett 8y ago
  > Remember that the crime involves having a blood/breath alcohol level WHILE DRIVING. Yep. This. I was on jury duty last year for a case involving this exact scenario. The defense lawyer was able to successfully argue the case "to a reasonable doubt" based on this basis.
jonknee 8y ago
> By the time an officer asks you to submit to a BAC test, they've already observed enough behavior to make them believe that you may be a danger to others. That's the goal, but cops also sometimes just like to exercise their power and arrest people who don't show signs of impairment. Or use that as an excuse to search the car and try to find a speck of weed. I certainly don't trust an officer to accurately gauge something so nebulous. Hopefully in a few decades we'll all be in self driving vehicles and DUI will be a thing of the past.
vivekd 8y ago
As a lawyer, I support your personal advice that no one should be anywhere near the legal limit while behind the wheel. I advocate for 0 drinks before driving. That said I want to correct a few things: 1. In many jurisdictions, including mine, you do not have the option to submit to a blood test. If the police demand a breath test, and you refuse, you will be charged for failure to blow, the penalty for which is, in many cases, the same as being charged with drunk driving. You can't say to the police "can't I just get a blood test instead" to get out of this failure to blow charge. 2. The intoxylizer breath testing devices are heavily guarded, the government and the company that makes them have refused to release the source code or the machines themselves for testing. The one time the court did order the source code to be turned over the company claimed they lost it. https://tampaduiattorney.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/cmi-lost-the-source-code-on-the-intoxilyzer-8000-now-what/ https://tampaduiattorney.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/cmi-lost-t... Under such circumstances, it is unrealistic to think that real objective and meaningful tests will be done to establish the validity of these machines. 3. I'm not the one telling people that there is a legal limit and they should be below it. I'm telling people not to drink at all. It's the government that made up this stupidity about legal limits and it seems to be the least we can ask for as citizens for the government to stick to the very stupid and ill devised rules they come up with. If you don't want people to be anywhere near the legal limit when driving then make that the rule and tell them that. Don't make up this mumbo jumbo about legal limits and pretend you have the ability to test for it when you don't because that'll lead many people to inadvertently break the law.
- supergeek133 8y ago
  Exactly, there is quite a bit of news stories every year about "here is how many drinks a person of this height and weight can have before being .08" or whatever. Just don't drink and drive, that's the only sure fire way to not get accused. Especially for a limit you can't test yourself without spending ~$100USD to get a personal tester which they don't guarantee the accuracy of. We're trying to enforce laws on an uneven playing ground (a limit the average citizen can't test against until it's too late).
- Balgair 8y ago
  FYI for other readers, in CO and MI, the limit is 0.05. Be careful out there. > If the police demand a breath test, and you refuse, you will be charged for failure to blow, the penalty for which is, in many cases, the same as being charged with drunk driving. Question for a lawyer then: How does this affect international travel. I know that you can't go to Canada if you have a DUI on your record, and other countries can be even more scrutinious. Is a Failure to Blow considered the same as a DUI to countries like those?
camgunz 8y ago
The BAC limit in most states is basically two drinks. That's moderate drinking, but if you get pulled over that's a DUI. If you have one drink but your breath is too hot, that's a DUI. If you have two drinks, walk for 6 hours and get behind the wheel, that's also a DUI because the time for your BAC to go down is more or less "all night". The legal limit is very, very low, to the point where reasonable behavior is illegal. Basically the rule is "if you've had any alcohol in the last 24 hours, don't drive". Most people think you can have one or two and drive home, but you can't.
- djrogers 8y ago
  > If you have two drinks, walk for 6 hours and get behind the wheel, that's also a DUI because the time for your BAC to go down is more or less "all night". Completely untrue - I've been a 'subject' in police department intoxication training, and have watched the BAC of myself and my fellow 'subjects' drop rather predicatbly over the course of an hour or two from 'going to jail' to 'probably shouldn't have driven but not over the limit'. > The legal limit is very, very low, to the point where reasonable behavior is illegal. Also untrue for most people - yes, if you are a high-function alcoholic you may be more able to perform basic tasks while at .08 or .1, but most people are significantly reduced in capcity when actually tested (not just 'I feel fine').
  - camgunz 8y ago
    > Completely untrue - I've been a 'subject' in police department intoxication training, and have watched the BAC of myself and my fellow 'subjects' drop rather predicatbly over the course of an hour or two from 'going to jail' to 'probably shouldn't have driven but not over the limit'. This all depends on your body weight, your sex, your genetic ability to metabolize alcohol, what you're doing, and what you've eaten. It's also important to say most people don't carry around a field breathalyzer, so you can't tell how many hours you'll need to get under the limit because you have no idea what your BAC is.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The BAC limit in most states is basically two drinks. Very roughly true. > If you have two drinks, walk for 6 hours and get behind the wheel, that's also a DUI because the time for your BAC to go down is more or less "all night". No, it's in the neighborhood of 1 hour to drop 0.01% from most sources I can find. EDIT: > The legal limit is very, very low, to the point where reasonable behavior is illegal. No, slamming two drinks and hopping immediately behind the wheel is not even approximately reasonable behavior.
toss1 8y ago
I agree that I'm all against anyone even getting near the wheel after drinking, and the police should have every good tool at their disposal to prevent it. > "By the time an officer asks you to submit to a BAC test, they've already observed enough behavior to make them believe that you may be a danger to others." Not true at all. I know of numerous instances where people were required to blow into the breathalyzer with no prior observations related to substance impairment, or even a field sobriety test. I personally had an instance where I was stopped for 'suspicion of speeding' where the officer got no high reading but thought I was going fast (possible; I'd seen an odd reflection off to the side of the road and braked a bit), I had been driving for hours and had consumed zero drinks for days, but he told me to sit in his cruiser and do the test. Seemed disappointed. So a bad testing device could be a serious issue.

Clubber 8y ago

When someone blows a 0.08 when it really is a 0.07, that would be putting an innocent person in jail.

simion314 8y ago
Don't you have the right to ask for blood tests where you live?
- Clubber 8y ago
  I don't know, but I don't like needles, so I probably wouldn't. That's not really the point though.
- DennisP 8y ago
  Getting a blood test means either going to the police station, or letting a cop stick a needle in you on the side of the road. We should do whatever we can do avoid making innocent people do either one.
  - simion314 8y ago
    I agree with you, but the OP comment was that you would end up in jail, I think here in Romania if you are caught you will have to submit to blood tests so it is determined precisely your alcohol level in blood, depending on the level you may escape free since you are allowed to have a small level.
  - snark42 8y ago
    > Getting a blood test means either going to the police station, or letting a cop stick a needle in you on the side of the road. You have to go to the station anyway, the Portable BAC they use roadside is inadmissible in court, they give you a more accurate test at the station if you fail roadside. Having a nurse available to take a blood sample instead shouldn't be unreasonable.
- jdboyd 8y ago
  In PA, if you try that, you will have to pay a minimum fine of $500 and have your license suspended for a minimum of 1 year, even if the blood tests show no intoxication. If you have no previous DUI convictions, theses penalties may be worse than being found inaccurately to be over the limit.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
If you got into the drivers seat at 0.07 you are doing something wrong. Unless breathalysers detect alcohol when none exists, then I think knowing they are "10% eitherway" is a good caution.
- trentmb 8y ago
  > If you got into the drivers seat at 0.07 you are doing something wrong. Then change the law so .07 instead of .08.
- rascul 8y ago
  > If you got into the drivers seat at 0.07 you are doing something wrong. Not legally.
- hbnyc 8y ago
  How can you justify this from a legal standpoint? Personal ethics be damned, we've established that 0.08 is the line. 0.07 is not above or equal to that. You can't say someone is in the wrong because they are close, but not on the other side, of something binary.
  - thaumaturgy 8y ago
    What's happening in this thread right now is simply a difference of moral frameworks. On one side, you have people for whom right and wrong is defined by the law: if it's legal, then it's right, and if it's illegal, it's wrong. Therefore as long as people are making decisions that are consistent with law, they are fine. On the other side, you have people for whom right and wrong is a fuzzier judgement of consequences somewhat independent of the law. If it's dangerous but legal, it's still dangerous. If it's illegal and not dangerous, then maybe it shouldn't be enforced by law. It's sadly unlikely that either side is going to find any agreement with the other. I'm firmly in the second camp on this particular issue: I don't care that the law says that anything up to .08 is okay; if you're close enough to .08 that a marginal error in a device could make it illegal, then I wish you weren't driving. Hell, if I'm out, I'll give just about anyone a free ride home, and take them back to their car in the morning, if that's what it takes to keep them from driving "a little bit" drunk.
thaumaturgy 8y ago
In case it wasn't clear from my comment, I'm less willing to argue for the innocence of a person who was at .07, or .075, or .0799, because of the potentially serious consequences of their decisions and the number of convenient alternatives they had available. That's my personal position on this. It's consistent with my own moral framework. I get that there's a valid counterargument from a position of law-and-order morality. But I've also had friends who were first responders to a horrifying drunk driver collision. Trying to keep innocent people from bleeding out on the side of the road messes you up for a while. It's not a victimless crime. You can get from .08 to .06 by walking around for an hour. If you think you might be close enough to borderline, go take a walk.
- ironjunkie 8y ago
  We are in a state of law. you cannot argue that a person is innocent but "not innocent enough" because they came too close to the fixed limit. A person is over it and guilty or under it and innocent. As said above, if you think this limit is too high, fight to have it lowered but please don't blur the lines of the law based on your personal convictions.
- lolsal 8y ago
  > In case it wasn't clear from my comment, I'm less willing to argue for the innocence of a person who was at .07, or .075, or .0799, because of the potentially serious consequences of their decisions and the number of convenient alternatives they had available. Do you feel the same way about getting ticketed for Speeding when going 55mph in a 55mph zone? Going 56mph is technically speeding you know and 55mph is very close to 56 mpg. 55mph and 56mph are arguably equivalently dangerous. A limit is a limit. It's a discrete, unchanging, unambiguous, line in the sand that once crossed warrants consequences. That's why we codify these things into laws.
- driverdan 8y ago
  Your moral framework and personal position is not what should be used to determine guilt. One issue is that some places set a very low standard, one lower than evidence shows to effect driving ability. Being borderline with unnecessarily low limits means the person is not impaired.
DanBC 8y ago
If someone stops drinking, then gets in a car, then an hour later blows a 0.07 they were probably over when they started driving.
- lolsal 8y ago
  Innocent until proven guilty. Please don't pollute our legal system with "probably".
- dpark 8y ago
  Ignoring for a moment the issue with “probably”, this is also just not true. If you stop drinking and immediately get in a car to drive, your BAC is increasing while you are driving for some time. It’s entirely possible that your BAC is higher an hour after you stop drinking than immediately after, depending on how much you drank and how quickly.
thucydidesofusa 8y ago
This is specific to my jurisdiction but one can get a DUI so long as their BAC > 0. The .08 threshold exists because it's presumed that anyone with a BAC > .08 is too impaired to drive. The authorities have to demonstrate that individuals with BACs between 0 and .08 are impaired. A person driving around my local roads with a .07 BAC isn't necessarily innocent, they may well be impaired and a danger to themselves and others on the road.

DennisP 8y ago

That's excellent advice for personal behavior. However, the justice system should enforce the law as it stands, as accurately as reasonably possible. If the legal limit is too high, we should fix that in the legislature, not use faulty equipment to punish people who didn't break the law; someone who's a bit under the legal limit is in fact "totally innocent" according to the law. I once was given a BAC after being stopped for a faulty tail light on a Saturday night. I'd had a single glass of wine two hours before, and at that point was completely sober, wide awake, and paying attention to my driving. The officer didn't mention any other reason for stopping me, and seemed disappointed when my BAC test was clear.

grepthisab 8y ago
I had a similar experience. Went out, had a single drink over about a three hour period, drove home, got pulled over for speeding. I think given the time of evening they just assumed I had been drinking. They gave me a BAC and officer also seemed disappointed it was clear. If I had had more than two or three drinks over the same period of time (which would have made me still well under legal limit), I may have requested a blood test out of an abundance of caution and to not rely on a possibly-inaccurate BAC to determine the (I’m told) very expensive consequences of getting a DUI.
matwood 8y ago
> The officer didn't mention any other reason for stopping me, and seemed disappointed when my BAC test was clear. This is way more common than it should be. Dash cams have finally helped this situation somewhat, but when I used to work late in college I got pulled over way more than I should have for BS reasons. "You touched the white line", "Nope". "You were swerving", "No again". Finally a judge started throwing out all DUI cases without a dash cam and the police who dragged their feet for years after being mandated to install dash cams suddenly got it done. No one should ever be driving after drinking, but the police also need to follow the law.

dzhiurgis 8y ago

“Nice” thing about blood draw is that it’s going to take some time to get to a clinic, letting you loose 0.1 promile due to metabolism (or gain if you actually had a drink just before leaving). Sometimes you can even probably find ways to drag time... Don’t drink and drive tho.

jfaat 8y ago
In court they will just extrapolate from the blood results what your BAC would have been when pulled over, so this isn’t a silver bullet. Not drinking before driving definitely is though!

sandworm101 8y ago

Take this from a lawyer: Even if you are drunk, talk to a lawyer before the blood test. There are scenarios where, without drinking more, your blood alcohol can increase between the time you are pulled out of the car and the time your blood is drawn. Mix alcohol and food and there can be significant delays between drinking, breath alcohol measurements, blood alcohol measurement, and actual intoxication. Remember that the crime involves having a blood/breath alcohol level WHILE DRIVING. "Drinking and driving" alone doesn't make you guilty. I get very worried whenever "evidence" is taken far away from the offense. I've even heard about people who, after being arrested/released based on breath alcohol, are allowed to continue drinking and then have their blood drawn. If you are stopped and are given a breathalyzer, pass or fail, do not drink anything for at least 24 hours. You never know what the cops are thinking. They may be back. They may test you again in 15 minutes. Don't go back to the party. If the cops test you, your night is over.

jrjarrett 8y ago
> Remember that the crime involves having a blood/breath alcohol level WHILE DRIVING. Yep. This. I was on jury duty last year for a case involving this exact scenario. The defense lawyer was able to successfully argue the case "to a reasonable doubt" based on this basis.

jonknee 8y ago

> By the time an officer asks you to submit to a BAC test, they've already observed enough behavior to make them believe that you may be a danger to others. That's the goal, but cops also sometimes just like to exercise their power and arrest people who don't show signs of impairment. Or use that as an excuse to search the car and try to find a speck of weed. I certainly don't trust an officer to accurately gauge something so nebulous. Hopefully in a few decades we'll all be in self driving vehicles and DUI will be a thing of the past.

vivekd 8y ago

As a lawyer, I support your personal advice that no one should be anywhere near the legal limit while behind the wheel. I advocate for 0 drinks before driving. That said I want to correct a few things: 1. In many jurisdictions, including mine, you do not have the option to submit to a blood test. If the police demand a breath test, and you refuse, you will be charged for failure to blow, the penalty for which is, in many cases, the same as being charged with drunk driving. You can't say to the police "can't I just get a blood test instead" to get out of this failure to blow charge. 2. The intoxylizer breath testing devices are heavily guarded, the government and the company that makes them have refused to release the source code or the machines themselves for testing. The one time the court did order the source code to be turned over the company claimed they lost it. https://tampaduiattorney.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/cmi-lost-the-source-code-on-the-intoxilyzer-8000-now-what/ https://tampaduiattorney.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/cmi-lost-t... Under such circumstances, it is unrealistic to think that real objective and meaningful tests will be done to establish the validity of these machines. 3. I'm not the one telling people that there is a legal limit and they should be below it. I'm telling people not to drink at all. It's the government that made up this stupidity about legal limits and it seems to be the least we can ask for as citizens for the government to stick to the very stupid and ill devised rules they come up with. If you don't want people to be anywhere near the legal limit when driving then make that the rule and tell them that. Don't make up this mumbo jumbo about legal limits and pretend you have the ability to test for it when you don't because that'll lead many people to inadvertently break the law.

supergeek133 8y ago
Exactly, there is quite a bit of news stories every year about "here is how many drinks a person of this height and weight can have before being .08" or whatever. Just don't drink and drive, that's the only sure fire way to not get accused. Especially for a limit you can't test yourself without spending ~$100USD to get a personal tester which they don't guarantee the accuracy of. We're trying to enforce laws on an uneven playing ground (a limit the average citizen can't test against until it's too late).
Balgair 8y ago
FYI for other readers, in CO and MI, the limit is 0.05. Be careful out there. > If the police demand a breath test, and you refuse, you will be charged for failure to blow, the penalty for which is, in many cases, the same as being charged with drunk driving. Question for a lawyer then: How does this affect international travel. I know that you can't go to Canada if you have a DUI on your record, and other countries can be even more scrutinious. Is a Failure to Blow considered the same as a DUI to countries like those?

camgunz 8y ago

The BAC limit in most states is basically two drinks. That's moderate drinking, but if you get pulled over that's a DUI. If you have one drink but your breath is too hot, that's a DUI. If you have two drinks, walk for 6 hours and get behind the wheel, that's also a DUI because the time for your BAC to go down is more or less "all night". The legal limit is very, very low, to the point where reasonable behavior is illegal. Basically the rule is "if you've had any alcohol in the last 24 hours, don't drive". Most people think you can have one or two and drive home, but you can't.

djrogers 8y ago
> If you have two drinks, walk for 6 hours and get behind the wheel, that's also a DUI because the time for your BAC to go down is more or less "all night". Completely untrue - I've been a 'subject' in police department intoxication training, and have watched the BAC of myself and my fellow 'subjects' drop rather predicatbly over the course of an hour or two from 'going to jail' to 'probably shouldn't have driven but not over the limit'. > The legal limit is very, very low, to the point where reasonable behavior is illegal. Also untrue for most people - yes, if you are a high-function alcoholic you may be more able to perform basic tasks while at .08 or .1, but most people are significantly reduced in capcity when actually tested (not just 'I feel fine').
- camgunz 8y ago
  > Completely untrue - I've been a 'subject' in police department intoxication training, and have watched the BAC of myself and my fellow 'subjects' drop rather predicatbly over the course of an hour or two from 'going to jail' to 'probably shouldn't have driven but not over the limit'. This all depends on your body weight, your sex, your genetic ability to metabolize alcohol, what you're doing, and what you've eaten. It's also important to say most people don't carry around a field breathalyzer, so you can't tell how many hours you'll need to get under the limit because you have no idea what your BAC is.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> The BAC limit in most states is basically two drinks. Very roughly true. > If you have two drinks, walk for 6 hours and get behind the wheel, that's also a DUI because the time for your BAC to go down is more or less "all night". No, it's in the neighborhood of 1 hour to drop 0.01% from most sources I can find. EDIT: > The legal limit is very, very low, to the point where reasonable behavior is illegal. No, slamming two drinks and hopping immediately behind the wheel is not even approximately reasonable behavior.

toss1 8y ago

I agree that I'm all against anyone even getting near the wheel after drinking, and the police should have every good tool at their disposal to prevent it. > "By the time an officer asks you to submit to a BAC test, they've already observed enough behavior to make them believe that you may be a danger to others." Not true at all. I know of numerous instances where people were required to blow into the breathalyzer with no prior observations related to substance impairment, or even a field sobriety test. I personally had an instance where I was stopped for 'suspicion of speeding' where the officer got no high reading but thought I was going fast (possible; I'd seen an odd reflection off to the side of the road and braked a bit), I had been driving for hours and had consumed zero drinks for days, but he told me to sit in his cruiser and do the test. Seemed disappointed. So a bad testing device could be a serious issue.