Taimoor Rana is seasoned criminal defense attorney specializing in DUI related cases. He shares his expert legal opinion here Do Breathalyzers Discriminate Against Women? »
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- If you have been charged for DUI and if it has been shown by a breath test that your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is .08% or higher, then you are guilty. Of course, it does not matter, whether you are a man or a women: there is no discrimination in law.
Maybe they should…
It has been found by the researchers at the University School of Medicine in Trieste, Italy, that the stomach lining contains an enzyme called gastric alcohol dehydrogenase that breaks down alcohol, and in women this enzyme is less than a men. In order to determine the relative effects of the enzyme, they gave alcohol both orally and intravenously to groups of alcoholic and non-alcoholic men and women.
It has been found that women reached the same levels of blood alcohol as men after drinking only half as much; having taken the weight differences into account, it has been founded by them that women reached BAC levels illegal in a DUI case after drinking 20 to 30 percent less alcohol than men.
The scientists’ concluded that when defining safe levels of drinking for driving motor vehicles legislatures may need to consider sex differences in drunk driving laws.
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10 DWI/DUI Myths and Their Facts – Part-3 »
Myth # 8:
Law enforcement officers can’t influence the BAC reading of a breath-testing machine.
Fact:
Law enforcement officers can and do influence BAC readings. Law professor and lawyer Lawrence Taylor quotes Dr. Michael Hlastala, Professor of Physiology, Biophysics and Medicine at the University of Washington. He said that, By far, the error which is most overlooked in breath testing for alcohol is the pattern of breathing…. During the breath the concentration of alcohol changes considerably… After discarding the dead space, the first part of the breath, has an alcohol concentration much lower than the equivalent BAC. Whereas, the alcohol concentration of the last part of the breath is much higher than the equivalent BAC. The last part of the breath could be over 50% above the alcohol level….Thus, it maybe indicated by a breath tester reading of 0.14% which has been taken from the last part of the breath that the blood level is only 0.09%.
It has been explained by Professor Taylor that, many police officers are aware of this error. They also know that if the machine opposes their judgment that the person they arrested is intoxicated, then it will effect their reputation.
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