Quoted: No, cause you don't bleed into it. They measure Breath Alcohol Content. And very effectively, too, if you get a quality one.
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Breath alcohol is related to blood alcohol, but it's the alcohol in your blood stream that causes impairment.
Individuals differ in the amount of alcohol they excrete via breath and urine, most is removed from the blood via the liver... Anyway, I'm talking about the handheld breathalyzers..the larger versions at the station are far more accurate, but once again both of them are estimating blood ethanol content by getting a reading of breath alcohols and then using a mathematical formula to estimate blood levels.
I'm not arguing the legalities, if you blow above the legal limit then you're going to found guilty. But that's with the court approved stationary devices...the hand helds will tell you with accuracy wether or not someone has been drinking, and if it's close to or over the legal limit, but to really know with certainty what the blood alcohol content happens to be you need to get a blood sample and then test via gas chromatography.
All I'm saying is that you don't really know if you are 0.08 just by blowing into a hand held sensor. Of course, if you're sensor reads that or anything above 0.03, I wouldn't drive...