KOCHI: Having faced embarrassment a few times after old breathalysers wrongly detected drivers as being drunk, the Kochi City police are desperately looking to replace the old devices at the earliest. The latest incident of the breathalysers showing a ‘false positive’ was reported on Saturday night. The vehicle of Lalu George, a college professor, was stopped during an inspection near North Kalamassery.
The breathalyser showed he had consumed alcohol. However, Lalu maintained he was a teetotaller. Refusing to believe him, the inspector took him to the police station. After spending half an hour at the station, he was tested using an alcometer. The result came back negative.
Embarrassed, the police officials apologised to Lalu and accompanied him to his house. S Sasidharan, Deputy Commissioner of Police, said such incidents of wrong detection are rare. However, several breathalysers are old enough to be replaced soon. He said Lalu’s case was the second such incident in Kochi in recent times.
“One remedy to prevent such isolated incidents is to get new breathalysers. We are looking to procure new machines. Devices that are very old and require replacement often show the error,” Sasidharan said. On Saturday’s incident, the DCP said, “We apologised to the professor for the mistake and he accepted it. No complaint of misbehaviour by the police was raised,” he said. Sasidharan said drivers have the right to challenge the breathalyser results if they are confident of not driving under the influence of liquor.
“When a person is caught for drink-driving, we take him to the police station where he undergoes a test using an alcometer. No action is taken immediately after a driver is detected in the breathalyser test,” Sasidharan said. He said on Saturday night, 389 people were caught drunk driving. All of them underwent the alcometer test before being booked, Sasidharan said. There were cases when breathalysers detected alcohol but the alcometer test showed that the amount of liquor in the body was minimal, due to which police could not book the driver, said Sasidharan.
A station house officer (SHO) of a Kochi police station said some drivers insist on blood test. They are taken to a hospital for a test to detect the level of alcohol.
“Breathalyser tests cannot always be reliable. There have even been instances when people driving under the influence of liquor went undetected despite blowing into the breathalyser at one point but got caught at another checkpoint. Earlier, policemen, based on suspicion, would ask drivers to exhale on their faces to check whether liquor had been consumed. This practice has gone out of favour since Covid hit. If policemen become suspicious of the driver’s behaviour, they take the person to the police station for further checks,” said the officer.