Can a personal breath test help you avoid a DUI?

You like to go out and have a few drinks with friends. At the same time, you know how dangerous drunk driving is. You want to stay safe and avoid arrest. To do so, you buy a personal breath test online. It hooks to your keys. Before getting into the car, you just check to see if you’re over the legal limit. Will this help you avoid a DUI?

Your perception

It can help in one key way: by changing your own perception regarding how you feel. It’s common for people to assume that they’re just buzzed but not that drunk, even when they’re over the legal limit. Alcohol makes it harder to determine how intoxicated you are. A breath test can reveal the truth so that you can make logical decisions based on facts, not based just on how you feel.

Not a legal tool

What a personal breath test will not do is protect you in court. If you get arrested for a DUI, you can’t bring out a picture that you took of your breath test at the time, showing that it only read 0.07%, and think that will get the charges dropped. The court will not accept a potentially inaccurate test as evidence.

Your options 

So, as you can see, a breath test can help you avoid a DUI if it tells you that you are over the legal limit and you don’t drive. Maybe you think you’re just buzzed but then you blow a 0.09% and decide to call an Uber. In that way, it keeps you safe and prevents an arrest. Where it doesn’t help is when the test shows that you are below the legal limit. It may not be accurate and it won’t count as evidence even if it is. If you drive because the test told you that you were under the limit and get arrested anyway, you could still face serious ramifications. If this happens to you, make sure you know exactly what legal defense options you have. A personal breath test may not factor in, but there are many ways to fight DUI allegations.