Greensville County DUI Breathalyzers

A breathalyzer is a breath test device used for measuring one’s blood alcohol content. Generally, breathalyzers are considered to be reliable and accurate instruments for measuring the alcohol content in a person.

Some common misconceptions about breathalyzers include that the tests are infallible. The fact that there is high reliability for the results does not mean that they are immune from mistakes or that the evidence from breathalyzers is not able to be contested. Breathalyzers have been known to produce false positives or inaccurate results.

If you have any questions about Greensville County DUI breathalyzers, reach out to a seasoned lawyer today. An experienced DUI lawyer could help you challenge the results and advocate for you throughout your case.

What is Implied Consent?

Due to implied consent, everyone who drives in Virginia is deemed to have consented to a breath or blood test when they are suspected of a DUI. If a driver without good cause refuses to blow into a breathalyzer test, they could face a civil penalty. This penalty includes a one-year suspension of their driver’s license.

For more information about Greensville County DUI breathalyzers and implied consent, consult with a knowledgeable attorney.

False Positives From Breathalyzers

Some ways that breathalyzers could result in false positives or inaccurately high scores are if there is any ambient alcohol in the testing area that could be present for different reasons. Also, false positives or inaccurately high scores could arise if a driver has burped at some point during the 20 minutes prior to testing. Another way a breathalyzer result could read a false positive is if they have used mouthwash or any other products that might result in mouth alcohol being present as opposed to the accurate reflection of any alcohol in the blood of the driver.

Calibrating Breathalyzers

Some crucial issues regarding the calibration of breathalyzer machines in Greensville County are that the regular calibration of breathalyzer machines is required for them to consistently produce reliable measures of alcohol in a driver’s blood. There is no law that requires them to be calibrated on a specific schedule, so every law enforcement department that has a breathalyzer tends to calibrate them on different schedules. The calibration of the machines is kept in the court records and is available to defense attorneys. If there has been a substantial period of time since calibration, it could be an issue that a defense attorney might raise at trial in defense of the DUI charge.

Challenging Breathalyzer Results

Even with the knowledge of the issues with breathalyzers, government experts continue to rely on these devices because the machines continue to be among the most reliable way of measuring blood alcohol content, they are less intrusive than a blood test, and they are less time-consuming than a blood test.

A defense attorney could challenge erroneous breathalyzer results in court for any given DUI case, depending on the circumstances surrounding the breathalyzer test, the recency of its calibration, and the inherent error rate that every machine possesses. It is possible to suppress the evidence of a breathalyzer machine if constitutional issues have arisen prior to the test itself.

Call a lawyer about Greensville County DUI breathalyzers and how a legal professional could help you challenge the results of a test.