Time change to impact DUI test


For three weeks, there's going to be an extra wait before people suspected of driving drunk can be given breath tests in 17 New Jersey counties.

Daylight savings time will begin Sunday. But the Alcotest 7110 breath-analyzing machine is not programmed to recognize daylight savings time until April 1.

The state Attorney General's office said that police officers will have to wait an hour after bringing in a suspect before starting the testing procedures. That way, the time on the machine will match the time of the arrest. The hour wait would be on top of a 20-minute wait always required before giving the tests.

It's not clear whether such a change might help or hurt the suspects.

Evan Levow, a Cherry Hill lawyer who specializes in drunk driving cases, told The Star-Ledger of Newark for today's editions that it could be worse in the case of drivers who had "a proverbial one or two for the road." In those cases, more alcohol would be absorbed into the body with the extra time.

But Robert Pandina, director of the Center for Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University, said there's an equal chance that the extra time for metabolism of alcohol would mean that a suspect's blood-alcohol level would drop in an hour.

Starting April 1, police can return to their normal procedure for breath tests.

The guidelines do not apply to the four counties that still use the old Breathalyzer machine.

The state Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing for April 4 on whether the Alcotest is more reliable than the older device.



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