Having a few over the next couple of weeks? Work’s Christmas party? Maybe just a few down the local? Whatever your drink of choice, it’s safe to say most of us will be having a tipple or three over the Christmas season. Something not everyone considers however, is if they’re sober and safe to drive the morning after the night before.
Chris Evans from Stockport-based online car leasing marketplace, Leasing.com, takes a personal breathalyser for a test drive.
A plethora of personal breathalysers have hit the market in the last few years and, wanting to see if one would be worth the investment, we duly armed ourselves with an unspecified quantity of lager and embarked on a spot of research.
The equipment we chose to tackle this illustrious fact-finding mission was Amstel. The makers insist it tastes best ‘chilled in Amsterdam’, but we’ll have to make do with Stockport. Despite being Europe’s second most popular beer, the UK has yet to fully apprecia…oh, hang on.
The equipment we chose to tackle this illustrious fact-finding mission was the AlcoSense Ultra, and costing a rather hefty £249.99, it could be said it’s the Rolls-Royce of personal breathalysers. If your budget doesn’t stretch that far however, products that use similarly accurate tech are available for less than £100.
This particular breathalyser is easy to use, telling you how much pressure to blow and when a sample has been taken.
Whatever brand or price-point however, the thing you need to check is that the product in question is a fuel cell-type breathalyser. It’s the same tech used by police forces around the world, and their accuracy and reliability make all other options rather redundant.
The Ultra in question features some nifty – if not essential – extras. It can tell you how long until you’re sober for example, and even has an alarm you can set that will alert you when you’re ok to drive.
In case you didn’t know, the legal alcohol limit for drivers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.08. That equates to 0.35 Mg of alcohol per litre of breath, as you’ll know if you’ve ever watched an episode of Police Interceptors.
The legal alcohol limit for drivers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.08
However, Scotland, and most of the rest of Europe for that matter, have a lower limit of 0.05 (BAC), equal to 0.22mg/L of breath. Anyway, on with our noble cause…
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