You like to go out to the bar with your friends, or maybe you like to have a glass of wine with dinner. You know that there are going to be times when you’ve consumed alcohol and you’re going to drive home.
What you don’t want to do is get charged with drunk driving. You know that it’s important to stay under the legal limit. As a result, you decide that you’ll simply buy your own breath testing device. This way, you can see what your blood alcohol concentration is before you get in the car. Can you do this?
These are not permissible in court
You certainly can buy your own “pocket” breath tester. These are fairly popular in there are a lot of different ones on the market. (Some are more accurate than others.) There’s nothing stopping you from buying one if you’d like to do so, and people do exactly what you’re planning – checking their own BAC before getting in the car.
The important thing to know, however, is that you cannot use this type of breath test in court. The results that you get are not considered to be official. It’s unknown how accurate the device you used actually was, and there’s no way for the court to know if you administered it properly. For that matter, there’s no way for them to know if the results that you got were even a result of you actually using the test. There are just too many variables and so you can’t use this to get out of a charge if you do get arrested.
So, your own breath test may help you, but don’t rely on it too much. If you wind up facing arrest, look into your legal defense options.