Breathylsed after leaving pub car park

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Sat 2 Oct 2010 11:42
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - Drage

Last night at 8pm I went for a quick pint in a pub with my workmates, something I've done most Friday nights for the past 20 years.

I drove out of the car park about an hour later and became aware of a marked police car following behind me. A few minutes later the blue lights went on, I was pulled over and asked to take a breathylser test.

I asked if I had committed any type of traffic offence and was told I hadn't but as they had seen me exiting a pub car park they had adequate grounds to suspect I had been drinking.

I passed the test but it has left me wondering whether the police are within their rights to do this sort of thing as it would mean that anyone seen by the police leaving a pub or restaurant car park can be stopped even if they haven't committed an offence or been involved in an accident.

Is this the situation in this country or have I been treated incorrectly?

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Sat 2 Oct 2010 13:18
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - Dwight Van Driver

Plod has power demand a specimen of breath if he suspects that a driver is driving with alcohol in his body. Whilst leaving a Pub Car Park is not grounds alone for giving grounds for reasonable suspicion no doubt when he spoke to you he smelt 'drink' on your breath and from the interior of your car which would give him the grounds for asking you to blow.

All above board and legal IMHO.

A plus from this is that you will have recountered this episode to many of your friends and aquiantances who next time they are out will remember what happened to you and not drink and drive?

dvd

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Sun 17 Oct 2010 23:35
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - Dutchie

Your lucky in the UK regarding drink driving,years ago in Sweden leaving a cafe or pub.The police would stop you before you got in the car.Check you breath if over off to gaol and goodby car.Unless the law has changed in Sweden.

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Thu 28 Oct 2010 17:39
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - concrete

This is the police these days. A few years ago I had a drink with a police friend in the police club inside the local police station. When leaving, my friend, a seargent at the time, stopped on the up ramp before joining the public road. From here he could see the approach to the entrance to the police station one way system. There, about 50 yards down the road was traffic car, parked waiting. This was a couple of minutes before shift change. Eventually the traffic car came along and turned into the police station. At this point my friend set off out. The traffic police spotted us, but by this time were committed to the one way system. We could see they were not pleased. My friend said it would take them at least 4 minutes to negotiate their way around to follow so he sped off and we got away. We had only had a couple of drinks, but you never know. This particular traffic crew liked nothing else than catching their own colleagues and regularly waited there before having to come in to clock off. If they do that to their own the public have no chance. You have been fortunate in discovering this now. Be warned. No mercy. Concrete

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Thu 28 Oct 2010 19:50
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - Collos25

You are pretty lucky in the UK a lot of countries very correctly allow zero for drinking and so they should even one pint of UK weak dish water will reduce your reactions and those who say it doesn't are in denial..

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Fri 29 Oct 2010 01:17
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - Dutchie

Hang on a minute Andy I had a nice pint of Tetleys this sunday.You are spoilt in Germany regarding beer its the hops they use.My uncle use to play in one of these local village bands and they often travelled to Germany any excuse for a good P/UP as they say in the UK.

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Fri 29 Oct 2010 17:53
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - concrete

Hello Andy, zero is unfeasable, even cough medecine can register on the test unit and then you spend a couple of hours in the police station wasting everyones valuable time just to be clear on a later test. My daughter works in drug testing and has a proper breath test unit, you would be amazed at what can register on that machine only to be clear some 30 minutes later. The average person will process the alcohol in a pint of beer or a glass of wine within 2 hours from the first sip. So if I have a glass of wine with my Sunday lunch by the time I am driving again most, if not all the alcohol has been processed, would you deny me that simple pleasure? I do not condone drink driving under any circumstances. You know what I mean by drink driving, people who insist they are fine after 3 or 4 pints and take a chance, but they do pay the penalty if caught. The police quite rightly treat the subject very seriously, but there is fine line between correct policing enforcement and targeting. The former is perfect the latter just alienates the public and is counter productive. The law is not at fault just the sometimes over zealous application to maintain there 'targets' for the monthly figures. Cheers Concrete

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Fri 29 Oct 2010 19:54
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - nortones2

Why shouldn't the police target? Fish in a barrel. You don't propose they wait until they come across a driver so poor that they signal intoxication? The chances of detection in such circumstances must be minute. Isn't that why DD is prevalent? As for alienating "the public", DD are not the public, just the fringe elements.

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Sat 6 Nov 2010 13:11
Breathylsed after leaving pub car park - Westpig

DVD has said most of this, but i'll post a bit more bluntly.

The Police can stop any driver at all, at any time, to check to see if they have a driving licence or insurance.

Once you've done that, if you suspect someone has been drinking alcohol, you can demand a breath test.

There is nothing in theory to stop a Police officer from using that first power (i.e. check D/L or Insurance) to investigate that bit and also see if once stopped they then need to instigate the second power (demand the breath test). Some might say it's unthecial to use the first power purely because you want to consider using the second one if need be..but..that's negated if you genuinely want to check the driving docs AND consider drink/driving... and just using the first power alone might well come up with offences on their own, so it's a perfectly legitimate tactic.

Which is why we do not need ramdon breath test powers in this country.

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