Coming to a Massachusetts Police Station Near You: the Draeger Alcotest 9510 Breathalyzer
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts received a 3 million dollar grant which will be used to replace the Draeger Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C with the newer, Windows based, Drager 9510. The implementation of the new Draeger Breathalzyer required the Massachusetts Office of Alcohol Testing to amend its breathalyzer regulations to allow the use of a dry gas calibration standard, which the new Drager 9510 breathalyzer uses. The Draeger Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C may continue to be used while the new breathalyzers are phased in.
The new breathazlyers are reported to have an improved user interface, better networking capabilities, and will be connected directly to the Office of Alcohol Testing and the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. From the police officer’s perspective, these new breathalyzers will operate in the same manner as the breath testing devices which they are replacing.
These breath testing devices are scheduled to be implemented this Fall, starting with police departments in Essex County, Massachusetts. The Essex County District Attorney’s Office is reportedly ready to defend evidentiary and legal challenges to the new devices. Once they are used in drunk driving cases, Massachusetts DUI Lawyers are likely to claim that the devices are unreliable and do not meet established scientific reliability requirements.
With the ability to prove alcohol intoxication simply by showing that an individual drove a motor vehicle on a public way or right of access with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above .08, Breathalyzers are critical pieces of equipment. Breathalyzer results often mean the difference between a guilty and not guilty verdict in a Massachusetts DUI case. Likewise, refusing to submit to a chemical breath or blood test can have severe consequences, in the form of a license suspension ranging from 180 days for a first offense DUI to lifetime for refusing to submit to a breathalyzer with 3 priorDUI convictions. In many cases, there is no ability to get a DUI hardship license during a breathalzyer refusal license suspension.
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