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15 May 2006 Today the Herald Sun newspaper announced in front page headlines that it had discovered that Victoria's evidentiary breath test machines have a 10% reduction programmed into them, and 20% reductions in the preliminary breath test screening devices. The paper's editors were outraged. See also The Age's report. The reduction programmed into the Drager 7110 breath test mechine has been well known by judges and lawyers for over 10 years. Police experts have been giving evidence about the reduction regularly whenever someone wants to debate the accuracy of the machine in court. Due to the programmed reduction it is extremely difficult to argue in court for a 3% or 4% reduction in the reading as a result of the machine's margin of error or because of improper calibration. It is next to impossible to argue that because a particular driver does not fit the 1:2100 ratio assumed by the machine that the driver was in reality marginally less than the alleged reading.The programmed reduction makes it very difficult to shave anything off the result produced by the device.

The Herald Sun claimed the Bracks government is hypocritical in that it allows discounts for drink drivers but not for speeding. This is not true. All speed measuring device readings are discounted by at least 2% before they are enforced. All traffic infringement notices have a detected speed and an alleged speed. It is the alleged speed that is used in court, so speeding drivers do have a discount applied for them. The discount for drink drivers is 10% because there is far more room for error and argument in a breath test than there is in speed detection.

If the 10% reduction were not in place, many people with a reading between 0.050% and 0.065% will take the matter to court and see if they can win their case. A breath test reading is imprecise for many reasons. For example, it measures breath alcohol and then assumes you are "an average human being" to give an estimation of what your blood alcohol concentration should be. The machines now give results as grams of alcohol in breath and not blood to try to avoid legal arguments. At the moment it is extremely hard to challenge the accuracy of the Drager 7110 because its weaknesses are already accounted for in the 10% reduction.

The 20% reduction in preliminary breath test devices is of no consequence at all. The preliminary breath test reading is never used in court and never disclosed to the motorist. So whether it is reduced by 20% or not is almost irrelevant. If anything, it saves the police from getting high readings on the inaccurate preliminary device only to find later that the evidentiary breath test result is within legal limits, thus saving up to two hours of police members time for each wasted test.

I note that the article is written by the politics reporter, not a court reporter, and quotes the Liberal opposition but does not quote comment from the Government. The way it critisices the government and lends support to Doyle's old 10% leniency for speeding makes it sound remarkably like a Liberal Party press release, not a court report.

 

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