Updated 7 hours ago
A New York Times investigation reveals that breathalyzers may not be as accurate as previously thought, with some test results as much as 40% too high due to machines being configured incorrectly or stored inaccurately. The tests — in which if a driver scores 0.08 or higher is alleged to be intoxicated at the wheel — are becoming more frequently invalidated by judges across the country. In Massachusetts and New York alone, judges have thrown out 30,000 in the last year due to “human errors and lax governmental oversight.”
The Dräger Alcotest 9510 and similar devices from other manufacturers are found in police stations across the country. The test results produced by these machines are increasingly drawing skepticism from judges.Credit...Cooper Neill for The New York Times
A million Americans a year are arrested for drunken driving, and most stops begin the same way: flashing blue lights in the rearview mirror, then a battery of tests that might include standing on one foot or reciting the alphabet.
What matters most, though, happens next. By the side of the road or at the police station, the drivers blow into a miniature science lab that estimates the concentration of alcohol in their blood. If the level is 0.08 or higher, they are all but certain to be convicted of a crime.
But those tests — a bedrock of the criminal justice system — are often unreliable, a New York Times investigation found. The devices, found in virtually every police station in America, generate skewed results with alarming frequency, even though they are marketed as precise to the third decimal place.
Judges in Massachusetts and New Jersey have thrown out more than 30,000 breath tests in the past 12 months alone, largely because of human errors and lax governmental oversight. Across the country, thousands of other tests also have been invalidated in recent years.