The law and drink driving

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by Milky Bar Kid

.......

The limits are changed so that 35 microgrammes in 100ml of breath matches the same amount of alcohol in your blood at 80 and 108 in urine.

It's definitely better to get done in Scotland then, in England the urine limit is 107......

I apologise for a typing error! Whooopseee!

Police employees in this thread believe in the equipment they're given. They can only believe the information they have been given. Whether that information has been scientifically challenged is another matter.

For a true debate shouldn't this be answered by physicians/biochemists on the human/physiological front and analyst engineers/chemists on the equipment front?

Interesting vaguely nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Tim in Belgium

Police employees in this thread believe in the equipment they're given. They can only believe the information they have been given. Whether that information has been scientifically challenged is another matter.

For a true debate shouldn't this be answered by physicians/biochemists on the human/physiological front and analyst engineers/chemists on the equipment front?

Interesting vaguely nonetheless.

I think they have been challenged in the past by defence agents and such like. There are very very few procedures that have not been challenged to the Nth degree.

I am not challenging the fact that the procedures have been challenged. All I am saying is that as an employee you are reporting this to me, and are not an expert in this field.

I would not expect a police officer to challenge every law, but to implement them. I do not think it is a police officer's job to be an expert in every or any field of law, and I expect them to be an expert at nothing apart from enforcing the law Which I am sure you're all good at doing sensibly.

The point I was trying to make is that the devices have been challenged and therefore the sciencey bit has already been done - hence why the intoximeter machines in the station are so accurate now.

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by Tim in Belgium

Police employees in this thread believe in the equipment they're given. They can only believe the information they have been given. Whether that information has been scientifically challenged is another matter.

For a true debate shouldn't this be answered by physicians/biochemists on the human/physiological front and analyst engineers/chemists on the equipment front?

Interesting vaguely nonetheless.

We're not quite as easy as that you know.... I appreciate a new copper has to have some faith in what they are told at training school but that information is very rapidly reinforced (or disproved) by what they see with their own eyes. I know the breath test devices are fairly accurate because as MBK says the breath limit of 35 is supposed to marry up with the equivalent blood or urine specimen, and on countless occasions I've seen a breath reading or 40 to 50 replaced with a specimen (they have a right to this under the procedure) and the analysis subsequently show the breath reading to have been accurate.

Incidentally we don't prosecute for less than 40, where if the specimen comes back just one over you get done.