A study of accuracy of the breathalyzer as operated by police personnel. Paper presented at the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Honolulu, Hawaii, February 19-25, 1967.

The results of 1,172 breathalyzer tests made by police officers during training courses have been presented and compared with the results of 114 blood tests taken within 15 minutes of the breath test. Since these tests were performed by operators who were not fully trained and who were not employing all the checks that are required for tests for court purposes, we believe that breathalyzer tests are given in the field by properly qualified police personnel following carefully prescribed procedure will be at least as accurate as the ones presented here. When two breathalyzer tests are properly made, it may be concluded that the possibility of a result prejudicial to an accused person being presented to a court is virtually nonexistent.