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Man shows court Ice Cream causes false positive alcohol reading

The UPI had an interesting story from Australia that showed that ice cream had created a false positive on a breathalyzer test.

UPI article appears at

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/01/20/Ice-cream-causes-positive-alcohol-test/UPI-40821232496582/, and also below:

FRANKSTON, Australia, Jan. 20 (UPI) — An Australian man challenged to prove his claim that ice cream gave him a blood alcohol reading demonstrated his defense in court.

The man, whose name was not given, had asked Frankston Magistrates’ Court to remove the breath testing alcohol interlock device from his car, the (Melbourne, Australia) Daily Sun reported Tuesday.

Prosecutors inquired why the machine had registered a “fail,” which prevents the car from starting, despite the man’s claims that he had not been drinking.

The man claimed the alcohol reading was the result of eating a Bubble O’ Bill ice cream treat and Magistrate Rod Crisp ordered a test to be performed to back up the claim. Police recorded the man’s blood alcohol content as 0.00 and performed the test a second time after he took a few bites of Bubble O’ Bill, yielding a 0.018 reading.

Crisp granted the man’s request to remove the breath testing device from his car.

Experts said consuming some foods or drinks before breath tests can cause a false positive reading. It is recommended that that test subjects wait at least 15 minutes in between eating and blowing into the machine.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 at 1:10 pm and is filed under DUI advice, DUI News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.