Anonymous Question Type 1. One drink hours before still over the limit?

[Anonymous Question]

My type 1 diabetic son was stopped by the police during the week. He had one drink hours before being stopped but has registered as being way over the limit. Could anyone please advise

 

[psignathus]

Well you are breathalyzed at the scene and if a positive test is given they read you your rights and you are arrested and taken to the station where you blow into the much more accurate machine which gives a digital readout. What was the digital readout?

 

[noblehead]

Sounds like one drink too many, the alcohol limit in Scotland is much lower than the rest of the UK so if this where your son was stopped then that may explain things.

Best bet is never drink & drive, it's just not worth it.

 

[JohnEGreen]

''
What the Breathalyzer Measures
Ignoring for the moment the inherent inaccuracy and unreliability of these machines, most suffer from a little-known design defect: they do not actually measure alcohol! Rather, they use infrared beams of light which are absorbed by any chemical compound (including ethyl alcohol) in the breath which contains the "methyl group" in its molecular structure; the more absorption, the higher the blood-alcohol reading. The machine is programmed to assume that the compound is "probably" alcohol.
Diabetes and the Breathalyzer
Unfortunately, thousands of compounds containing the methyl group can register as alcohol. One of these is "acetone". And a well-documented by-product of hyperglycemia is a state of DKA or "Diabetic Ketoacidosis", which causes the production of acetones in the breath. In other words, the Breathalyzer will read significant blood alcohol levels on the breath where there may be little or none. See, for example, Brick, "Diabetes, Breath Acetone and Breathalyzer Accuracy: A Case Study", 9(1) Alcohol, Drugs and Driving (1993). ''

https://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/diabetes-and-the-counterfeit-dui

This is assuming all breathalyzers work on the same principal Here and in the USA.

 

[JohnEGreen]

A sudden thought would the same apply to those on very low carbs and in ketosis could you get a false positive from a breathalyzer if acetone present in breath.

 

[steve_p6]

''
What the Breathalyzer Measures
Ignoring for the moment the inherent inaccuracy and unreliability of these machines, most suffer from a little-known design defect: they do not actually measure alcohol! Rather, they use infrared beams of light which are absorbed by any chemical compound (including ethyl alcohol) in the breath which contains the "methyl group" in its molecular structure; the more absorption, the higher the blood-alcohol reading. The machine is programmed to assume that the compound is "probably" alcohol.
Diabetes and the Breathalyzer
Unfortunately, thousands of compounds containing the methyl group can register as alcohol. One of these is "acetone". And a well-documented by-product of hyperglycemia is a state of DKA or "Diabetic Ketoacidosis", which causes the production of acetones in the breath. In other words, the Breathalyzer will read significant blood alcohol levels on the breath where there may be little or none. See, for example, Brick, "Diabetes, Breath Acetone and Breathalyzer Accuracy: A Case Study", 9(1) Alcohol, Drugs and Driving (1993). ''

https://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/diabetes-and-the-counterfeit-dui

This is assuming all breathalyzers work on the same principal Here and in the USA.

That's quite an old reference, from a quick scan on google modern breathalysers should not get confused between acetone and alcohol and certainly not the full machine back in the station.

 

[TorqPenderloin]

I hate to say it, but the most likely answer to the situation (at least to me) is that someone wasn't being honest with his mother and had more than a single drink.

 

[azure]

It also depends what the drink was. As an example, I drink red wine and if you look at the bottle you can see what size glass they're counting as 'one glass'. It's much smaller than a glass you'd have in a pub, so a glass of wine could easily have more than two units in, even though in your head you might be thinking "one glass is one unit".

With spirits, people often buy you a double without mentioning it, and, of course beer can vary enormously in strength.

 

[JohnEGreen]

Yes I accept that that an old link sorry. This is a quote from a slightly newer source I don't know if the technology has changed a lot in the last three years or not.

'' The hand-held preliminary breath testers (PBTs) used in the field by law enforcement officers are not nearly as sophisticated as the evidenciary machines. They have neither slope detectors nor acetone sensors. They can issue a false result, but these tests are not accepted by courts for evidenciary use. In many courts, the results of a PBT can't even be mentioned. ''

https://www.quora.com/What-physical...ions-might-cause-a-false-breathalyzer-reading

Again from the USA but we seem to adopt much the same technology and rules of evidence I think there is room for doubt with the roadside machines even the manufacturers though deeming it unlikely don't say it's an impossibility.

Yes and one drink can maybe be two or three in reality

 

[therower]

Definitely need to know what. " one drink " actually was.
A vodka and Red Bull at home or a friend's could quite easily be a triple vodka.