Police asking about alcohol consumption before breath test

Convicted Driver Insurance
price1367

price1367

TTC Group
The last part in this post is not correct.
At the roadside, If the police have grounds to believe that a driver has consumed alcohol in the past 20 minutes - not an hour - then they should wait for the 20 minutes to be up. Unless they have specific information that alcohol has been consumed in the past 20 minutes then they do not have to wait.
Now it might seem sensible to ask when the driver last had an alcoholic drink but case law says that this is not actually necessary.
The reading that you are prosecuted for is the one at the police station and I am certain that mouth alcohol will have long gone by the time you are booked in to custody and then placed on the evidential machine.
I have done tests on the Lion Intoxilyzer 6000 for mouth alcohol. Very shortly after using breath freshener containing alcohol the reading was 120 (no alcoholic drinks had been consumed) by the time the machine had reset and the second sample was provided it was 15. 8 minutes later the reading was zer,.
 
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price1367 said:
The last part in this post is not correct.
At the roadside, If the police have grounds to believe that a driver has consumed alcohol in the past 20 minutes - not an hour - then they should wait for the 20 minutes to be up. Unless they have specific information that alcohol has been consumed in the past 20 minutes then they do not have to wait.
Now it might seem sensible to ask when the driver last had an alcoholic drink but case law says that this is not actually necessary.
The reading that you are prosecuted for is the one at the police station and I am certain that mouth alcohol will have long gone by the time you are booked in to custody and then placed on the evidential machine.
I have done tests on the Lion Intoxilyzer 6000 for mouth alcohol. Very shortly after using breath freshener containing alcohol the reading was 120 (no alcoholic drinks had been consumed) by the time the machine had reset and the second sample was provided it was 15. 8 minutes later the reading was zer,.
Click to expand...

Ok, i hear that and i know its nearly four years ago so i cannot dispute it, but in your professional opinion, how come 1 bottle of wine equated to 126?... that is the part i do not understand.
 
sorry to pursue this, but i do think it an issue that has been bugging me for nearly four years now....
1 bottle of wine
1 mouth freshener

126 on the breathalyser?

Surely a 126 would mean more than one bottle of wine?
hence even more reason why the police SHOULD have asked when the last time i drank was.

Sorry i dont mean to be antagonistic, as i do appreciate this forum and everyone involved, but this has really been a bug bear for 4 years now and i would like to put it to rest that i did all i could at the sentencing.
 
The only time the police may ask at the roadside is before a sample, not afterwards.
If you give two readings of 121 at the station, then it is clear that you have not had a drink in the past 20 minutes because you have been with the police at that time. In fact they DO ask then, because it is on the form MDGGA that they use, but of course you would then give the correct answer.
You indicated your reading at the station was 121 (ignore the 126 at the roadside, that is only an indication and may not be accurate) I don’t know the strength of the wine, but if it was 14%, then a 750ml bottle would be 10.5 units. The legal limit for a female (I assume that from your name on here?) is 3 units with the legal limit being 35 in breath.
10.5 units equates to a reading of 122.5 in breath.
What isn’t known is the length of time since you drank the bottle, where after about half an hour you should have started to eliminate alcohol to reduce that reading.
I can only suggest 3 reasons for your reading continuing to be high
You may have a medical problem which prevented or delayed your liver from processing the alcohol.
You still had some alcohol in your system from drinking at lunchtime - if this was in the evening when you drank the bottle of wine and were then stopped.
You mention a mouth freshener. What type and when did you have it? In theory that might have had an effect on the reading.
 
yes, it was in the evening with dinner that i opened the bottle of wine, nothing was had at lunchtime as i was at work.
the mouth freshener was listerine mouthwash that i used after dinner.
At the time, it never occurred to me to question both things but i have had a LOT of months/years to research and both these issues seem to keep cropping up!
The possible "medical problem" rings true, as i nearly needed a liver transplant in 2012 due to complications after a paracetamol overdose and have never been able to take certain antibiotics since, as they make me quite ill/nauseous
 
The listerine would only have had an effect for a few minutes, unless you drank it which is unlikely!
As you say, it is done now but I can understand it niggling at you.....
Your liver problems could be the answer.. I am not suggesting that you repeat your situation again, but perhaps you could purchase a breath test machine like the Alcosense Lite for about £35-40 - available online and gives decent results,- drink half a bottle of wine and see what your reading is and how it decreases with time. Making sure you are not going to drive for a while of course......
 
no i didnt drink it lol! just rinsed mouth out before going out for the stupid drive that i did (no idea why i thought it would help.... probably subconsciously thinking "at least i wont smell of alcohol if i get stopped"... ridiculous!)

the breath test machine sounds a great idea, as once i DO get licence back its really niggling at me at why the reading was so high... I will definitely purchase one and no i definitely wont be driving whilst under the influence of mouthwash / half a bottle :)
Thanks Price, yours and others advice has been invaluable over these months, i really appreciate it.

Rosie
 
Your welcome. Because of the changes to the forum recently I cannot look at your previous posts to see what your history is but glad to have been of assistance
 
I have the Alcosense Pro, It's pretty good. I ordered the Excel for 99.99 but they were out of stock, so sent me the Pro (RRP 149.99) instead at no extra cost. Being fuel cell breathalyers they do recommend you send them off for recalibration every year at a cost of 20 quid or so.
 
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