Mississippi Criminal Law BlogIn this line of business, we attorneys come across new and improved quackery that is supposed to help drinkers keep track of their blood alcohol content and whether they should be out on the road behind the wheel.
However, last week, I encountered the Breathometer. What a name! (See www.breathometer.com for information.) This new piece of tech supposedly can give a user their current BAC levels, how many hours it will be until they are sober, and it is super portable.
Partiers should probably not treat this product as a new security blanket, because it is, by its very nature, not as accurate as the machine down at the police station (and defense attorneys already know how inaccurate these can be). Moreover, drunk-o-meters have been in bars for years as a bar gag game and have not stopped impaired drivers from getting behind the wheel.
As long as people are drinking, there will be a new piece of tech to get people drunker faster, sober up quicker, and/or monitor their BAC all along the way. The police are counting on these three facts as it only leads to increased drinking and increased DUI citation writing.
The only way to combat drunk driving is to know one’s own limits. While a drinking driver may not have the same equipment that the police use to sniff out BAC, these drivers can ascertain their own level of intoxication relative to levels they have felt prior. The problem with this line of thinking is that drinkers typically cannot identify the difference between feeling .08 and feeling .12 by way of an example. Is this where the Breathometer makes out its own niche? Or is it more likely that the Breathometer will lead to more drivers who are mistakenly over the limit to get behind the wheel?