Hot Item: Personal Breathalyzer

The personal breathalyzer market is big business. Apparently the media blitz by MADD and law enforcement is working. People are buying their own breathalyzer machines. Lots of people are buying them. According to an article in USA Today:

The personal breathalyzer market is valued at $215.2 million, up from $27.9 million in 2005, according to Susan Eustis, president and CEO of WinterGreen Research, which does market analysis for industries such as health care and telecommunications.

You would think this would make everyone happy. For example:

John Waldo, 56, of Montpelier, Vt., says he purchased a breathalyzer last month. “You go out for dinner, you have a couple of drinks and you have no idea whether you’re legal,” he says.

I like the way he said that. You have no idea if you’re legal. He didn’t say impaired. There is a big difference. DUI laws were originally designed to stop people from driving while impaired. That was a good idea. It made sense to keep impaired drivers off of the roads.

But that wasn’t good enough for MADD and law enforcement. So now we have new DUI laws and the drivers are judged by a machine.  Everyone knows that the breath test results do not show impairment. Blood-alcohol content levels affect people differently: A person can blow over the limit and still not be impaired.

The companies selling the personal machines are vouching for their reliability. No surprise. These companies are trying to make a profit. Of course they will say the machine works. They may even say their machine works better than another company’s machine.

I’m not stating a position on whether these machines are accurate or not. However, if it prevents someone who is “over the limit”  from driving, then that shouldn’t be a bad thing. I mean who would complain?

That would be law enforcement and AAA. According to the article, officials from both question the accuracy of these devices and discourage drivers from using the personal datamaster test breathalyzer to make their decision about driving.

AAA national spokesman Troy Green says the devices are more likely to provide inaccurate readings than those police use because of less sophisticated technology and the fact a self-testing intoxicated person might not produce a good breath sample.

That statement is incredible for two reasons. First, I don’t know about the “sophisticated technology” of the private machines, but I do know that the ones used by police are far from sophisticated. I believe the technology in the average child’s video game is superior. This is why the manufacturers fight to keep from revealing the technology to the defendant.

Secondly, every officer, in SC at least, will be glad to tell you that the machine will not give a reading if there is not an adequate breath sample (This usually results as a “refusal” which is treated much more severely than blowing over the limit).

As for the question of the  effectiveness of the personal breathalyzer:

The Food and Drug Administration has approved 21 of the devices… meaning they each are at least as safe and effective as other devices, FDA spokeswoman Peper Long says.

So there we have it. These machines are safe and at least as effective as the others. So I wonder if there may be another reason that law enforcement is against people using these devices, especially if their use is deterring people from driving over the limit. We know that law enforcement gives out awards to officers who make the most DUI arrests (not convictions). We know that police departments receive grants, cars and other equipment based on the number of DUI arrests. It’s almost like a circle: make more arrests so we get more equipment so we can make more arrests. I hope the reason law enforcement is against the use of personal breathalyzers is not because it might break up this circle.

I have put more quotes in this post than I usually do but I have one more. I have saved the best for last:

Corinne Geller, spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police, says it can be hard to get an exact reading on a personal breath test because blood-alcohol content levels affect people differently.

There it is. Priceless.

If this was a cross-examination, it would be time to sit down. But it’s not and I want to state it again: blood-alcohol content levels affect people differently. I think I said that before.