Factors That May Impact Breath Test Accuracy

A Colorado charge of driving under the influence may lead to serious, potentially life-changing penalties and repercussions. You may have to serve time behind bars and surrender your driver’s license. Your bank account may also take a serious hit if that charge leads to a conviction. Whether a law enforcement official who stops your car charges you with drunk driving often depends on the results of your breath test.

When you take a breath test, you blow into a device that assesses your degree of intoxication. If the device shows that you consumed more alcohol than state laws allow, you may face a DUI charge. However, breath test devices are not 100% accurate. Instead, there are certain variables that may affect a breath test’s accuracy. Some of these variables are as follows.

Insufficient or improper calibration

A breath test device must have strong batteries to produce accurate results, and it also has to undergo calibration at regular intervals. The results produced by a breath test device that does not have proper calibration are not necessarily accurate.

Environmental factors

In some cases, environmental factors have the capacity to throw off breath test results. If there are certain fumes or chemicals in the air when you take your test, there is potential for these substances to offset results.

Foreign substances

Having certain substances, among them blood or vomit, in your mouth when you take your breath test may also lead to inaccurate breath test results.

While these are some of the circumstances and factors that may impact breath test accuracy, this is not an exhaustive summary of all variables that may affect breath test results.