Traffic
Law News
Archived
News
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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