Breath alcohol testing has been used for over 15 years by the New Zealand Police in order to enforce drink driving laws. The results presented in this paper were obtained in the course of normal road traffic law enforcement over the last 6 years using either Intoxilyzer R 5000 VA or Seres Ethylometre 679T evidential breath testing devices. The field stability of these devices has been established by monthly calibration checks for selected devices. At least 80 percent of all duplicate results obtained using either instrument agreed to within 10 percent of the lower result, and at least 88 percent agreed to within 15 percent of the lower result. A database containing about 5,000 breath and subsequent blood analysis results has been established. The relationship between the mean breath alcohol analysis result (BrAC), the subsequent blood alcohol analysis result (BAC) and the delay time between breath and blood sampling has been examined in detail for both devices. The distribution of the results of evidential breath tests provides an indication of the state of intoxication of drinking drivers detected by the New Zealand Police. (A)
Samenvatting