Therefore, in an effort to put the brakes on drinking and driving, the British Government announced yesterday that drivers who fail a breathalyser test will no longer allowed to ask for a blood test, autocar.co.uk has reported. The Government has thought about this measure because many drunken drivers can escape prosecution as their level of alcohol drops to within the legal limit by the time the blood test is done.
For the moment, motorists who produce a breath sample of over 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 milliliters may ask for a blood test provided that the breath sample was somewhere between 35 and 50 micrograms. But very soon, this "privilege" will be history as the Government claims.
"If you are arrested at the roadside and taken in for the evidential test, the police have to call a doctor out and that can take a couple of hours, during which time your level will have gone down," a spokesperson for the Department for Transport said.
However, so far, it wasn't established a certain date for the modification in testing procedures.
"We are currently considering a range of options to further cut the toll, including looking at how to make it easier for the police to enforce laws against drink-driving," the spokesman added.
Needless to say, critics of the Government's plans have already appeared on the stage, claiming that breath-test technology doesn't provide accurate results and thus, innocent drivers might be convicted without being guilty.
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