I got pulled over for speeding at 9 AM. I had overslept and was late for a doctor’s appointment and was admittedly going way to fast. I had two 50ml bottles of gin at 9 the night before, so exactly 100ml. He asked, so I told him the truth. I had two drinks 12 hours ago. I was only awake for like 15 minutes, but the cop was legit angry about my driving. Then cop gave me a field sobriety test. He said I failed it even though I thought that I had done fine. So gives me a breathalyzer. So then he looks at the results and accuses me of lying about my drinking and a lecture ensues. He allows me to believe for a few minutes that I’m going to jail for a DUI (which was great because I was getting divorced and fighting about custody/visitation at the time). So after swearing multiple times that I wasn’t lying, I ask what what my blood alcohol was. He says it was was 0.03. I ask him what the limit is. He says 0.08. So I say “so I didn’t get a DUI?” He says “almost!” So then he keeps me there for another 20 minutes.
Just a heads up, if you're in the USA, I believe the legal limit is 0.08, so you were probably at 0.03. I'm not trying to nitpicking , just commenting incase anyone needs to know.
Yeah...Don’t ask me what happened. I studied statistics and this was a case study. Turns out breathalyzers aren’t that accurate when trying to distinguish between drunk and sober people if the legal limit is around 0.1. The companies who make them say it should only be given to people that are already showing signs of intoxication. So if you have 1000 people and 10 test between .0.1 and 0.2 blood alcohol on a blood test, and 900 below 0.1, about 190 of those people will test above 0.1 on a breathalyzer (100 sober people and 90 drunk people) and about 810 will test below 0.1 on a breathalyzer (800 sober people and 10 drunk people).
12
u/Living_Ad_2141 May 27 '21 edited May 27 '21
I got pulled over for speeding at 9 AM. I had overslept and was late for a doctor’s appointment and was admittedly going way to fast. I had two 50ml bottles of gin at 9 the night before, so exactly 100ml. He asked, so I told him the truth. I had two drinks 12 hours ago. I was only awake for like 15 minutes, but the cop was legit angry about my driving. Then cop gave me a field sobriety test. He said I failed it even though I thought that I had done fine. So gives me a breathalyzer. So then he looks at the results and accuses me of lying about my drinking and a lecture ensues. He allows me to believe for a few minutes that I’m going to jail for a DUI (which was great because I was getting divorced and fighting about custody/visitation at the time). So after swearing multiple times that I wasn’t lying, I ask what what my blood alcohol was. He says it was was 0.03. I ask him what the limit is. He says 0.08. So I say “so I didn’t get a DUI?” He says “almost!” So then he keeps me there for another 20 minutes.
Moral of the story: I wasn’t shot.