Bicycle breathalyzer

Interesting news article to share today, a team of engineers at Taiwan's Chienkuo Technology University have built a bicycle with a separate electric motor driving each wheel, handlebar warmers and a breathalyzer that will prevent the bike from being ridden if the cyclist is over the legal limit.

It doesn't look like there is much demand for this type of invention, but kudos to the engineers for their ingenuity.

Source: Environmental Transport Association (ETA): The electric bicycle breathalyzer: The bike you can’t ride drunk

Breathalyzer sensors are sensitive, the dictionary defines sensitive as "readily or excessively affected by external agencies or influences." This means that to extend the life of your breathalyzer's sensor you need to be careful what external influences you allow to act on it.

Failure to wait 20 minutes after smoking, eating or drinking will provide you with inaccurate results and can damage your breathalyzer's sensor, requiring service by a qualified technician.

Remember, it takes about 20 minutes for the alcohol in your mouth to be absorbed into your blood stream, and breathalyzers are calibrated to read a deep lung breath sample. If you blow into it shortly after taking a drink, the breathalyzer will get a direct blast of alcohol from your mouth and the BAC reading will be inaccurately high. If the amount of alcohol in your mouth is high enough it can also damage your breathalyzer's sensor, requiring service by a qualified technician.

From a previous blog post, we learned that smoking can delay alcohol absorption, causing inaccurate BAC readings, and smoke particles blown into the breathalyzer can damage sensor also.

In addition, if food particles find their way into your breathalyzer it could also cause damage to the sensor or at least block your breath from reaching the sensor, causing an inaccurate reading.

So next time you think about blowing into your breathalyzer right after drinking, smoking or eating remember that not waiting 20 minutes will give you an inaccurate BAC reading and you could damage the breathalyzer sensor for any future testing until it is serviced or replaced.

This video has been spreading across the Internet like wildfire, a reminder that if you drink and drive you'll become a laughing stock of the internet, millions upon millions of people watching you embarrass yourself.

Drink responsibly and don't ever drink and drive!

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Invented by Joe Saavedra, the SOBEaR is a teddy bear with a built-in Breathalyzer that the user must blow into befire receving a drink.  The SOBEaR calculates your BAC and serves an appropriate drink with it's motorized paws; the lower your BAC the higher the ratio of alcohol to mixer it will serve; too high and it gives you straight mixer with no alcohol.

An interesting party idea, but no replacement for a designated driver.

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Source: Brand X; http://www.thisisbrandx.com/2009/08/let-teddy-pour-you-a-drink-the-bartender-robot.html

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What are your thoughts?

Recently a few people have asked us how to clean their AlcoHAWK breathalyzer.  Here is what we recommend:

Use of a mild disinfectant cleaner and a soft cloth on the outside of the case is recommended periodically to keep your unit clean. Do not use alcohol to clean the unit.

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You may ask "Why can't I use rubbing alcohol to clean the unit?" The answer: Because your breathalyzer is used to detect alcohol and if any traces of rubbing alcohol are still on the unit you may have skewed results when you perform a test.

Check out this article on digitalBURG.com:

New Missouri state law requires repeat-DWI offenders to install breathalyzer devices on their cars

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This is a great addition to Missouri law showing that repeat DWI offenders will be treated with seriously.  We certainly hope everyone in Missouri feels safer with this new law in effect.

Here is a video that has some good tips to help you avoid a false positive.  We always recommend that you wait 20 minutes after the smoking, eating or drinking before testing. Failure to wait 20 minutes can give inaccurate BAC readings and harm the sensor of your personal breathalyzer.

Drunk Driving: How To Avoid A False Positive Breathalyzer Test