Internal police documents are raising doubts about the precision of some roadside breathalyzers used by B.C. police to catch drunk drivers.
Vancouver lawyer Paul Doroshenko filed Access to Information requests with police departments across the province and found that the screening devices aren’t always accurate.
Inspection documents from the Vancouver Police Department show some erratic readings on those tools.
“Sometimes they grossly inflate the reading that should be reflected on the unit,” Doroshenko said.
During a monthly calibration in February, one machine calibrated with a standard chemical solution showed a reading of .117 — when it should have registered .082.
If the reading had been off by that much on the road, it might have meant the difference between the “warning” level and a “fail.”
“We don’t know how many people blew into it — how many people blew a fail who were not actually over the limit,” Doroshenko said.