‘Double-check’ lined up for intoximeter

Press, 26 April 1984, Page 25

‘Double-check’ lined up for intoximeter

NZPA staff correspondent London Drivers who supply a positive test on the controversial Intoximeter computerised breath-testers will also have the right to a blood or urine test, the British Home Office has decided. The new “double-check” will begin on April 16 for a six-month period to “reestablish confidence” in the machines. They have been criticised as giving inaccurate readings since their introduction last May to streamline measures

against drinking and driving.

As one of a number of more sophisticated breathtesters, the Intoximeter is being tested for use in New Zealand by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Britain’s Home Office Minister, Mr Douglas Hurd, announced fresh experiments on the device saying confidence in the Intoximeter equipment had suffered as a result of recent publicity and there was a need to re-establish it. His decision came after

Lion Laboratories, the Welsh-based company which .produces the Intoximeter, failed in an Appeal Court bid to prevent a London newspaper, the “Daily Express,” publishing fresh material about the equipment used in drink-drive prosecutions. Three appeal judges lifted an injunction barring publication of memoranda' handed to the newspaper by former Lion Laboratory employees which allegedly questioned the reliability of the device. In a written answer in the House of Commons, Mr Hurd said the Home Office’s own evidence showed it was not a “valid criticism” to say the machine could give a false reading of the amount of alcohol in the breath.

Drivers who gave a breath sample which registered between 35 and 50 microgrammes per 100 millilitres were already given the option of supplying a blood or urine sample. Now all those who registered above the 50 per 100 mark will have this option with the certificate of analysis from the urineblood sample being available as evidence. The Automobile Association said that it had never been satisfied with the Government’s decision that drink-drive prosecutions should rely solely on the evidence of Intoximeters.