Hacker News Reader

Comment by oh_sigh | Hacker News Reader

You could get caught driving sober and be in for the same treat, depending on the vagaries of the breathalyzer and your genetics

View on HN

I’ve not heard of any breathalyzer false positives severe enough to warrant a DUI arrest. Is this a thing?

Are you referring to the rare condition where brewers’ yeast colonizes peoples’ gut and ferments carbohydrates into alcohol in vivo?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-br...

Disturbingly common, according to a NYT investigation. Moreover the machines are often improperly calibrated, software is not available, etc.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-br...

In court, from what I've seen, police officers (as witnesses) put on quite a show laying out their experience, the calibration of the machine, the outcome of the field tests, etc. because of the skepticism that people have. You get a very different picture than what you get from journalism like that. Not saying it is always accurate, or nothing is ever fabricated or lied about, just that it seems normal to cover every possible objection twice over and only prosecute the most aggravated cases (at least in my locale).

For what would the breath analyzer results be necessary in court? Arent there judge ordered mandatory blood alcohol tests after failing a breath analyzer test?

That's kind of my point, I don't think anyone goes and presents the breath test on its own. They're like "I was trained for X months to identify drunk drivers and use this equipment, and I've stopped X hundred drunk drivers, and I've been at parties where people are drinking, so I know what levels of drunkenness are like, and the machine was calibrated and they failed the walking and eye tracking tests and their pants fell down and they pissed themselves and they had a blood test of double the limit..."

The breath test is, I think (I am not a lawyer) insurance that there was reasonable suspicion of the person being drunk, not final proof of anything.

In Australia all positive breath tests are immediately followed by an actual blood sample test which is pretty reliable. I think its a good idea to double check like this.

At least in NSW/ACT, generally speaking, outside of police attendance at an actual crash where someone has been injured, a roadside positive breath test will be followed by an evidentiary breath test (typically taken at a police station) and they are not required to do blood tests.

You can get arrested for DUI at a 0.00. Both legitimately (doesn't have to be alcohol - could be many meds too, or even fatigue.) - or just catch the wrong cop on the wrong day.

Procedures are different in every state. You can get arrested if you are suspected of driving under the influence and then required to take a breathalyzer elsewhere.

An arrest isn't a conviction. Police don't hand down these judgments.

I think there is a general principle, that if a certain number of people have a condition, possibly rare, that severely affects them, then there are almost certainly going to be a lot more with milder versions that may go unnoticed, by the public, or by the health system, or statisticians, or whatever.

I think your unstated assumption is that the level of the condition that causes health problems and/or a diagnosis is the same level that would mess with breathalyzers. It could be much less.

Is this what you were thinking of? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21359430

Reply on news.ycombinator.com