If you are ever suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol and pulled over by the police, you may be given a breathalyzer test, which will be used to determine the level of alcohol concentration in your bloodstream. This device used by law enforcement is portable, reasonably accurate, and offers almost immediate results.

Given the dire consequences drivers face if they fail such a test, there’s a question that often comes up among people concerned about getting caught drinking and driving; Is there a way to trick the breathalyzer into showing a lower reading?

Listed below are some common myths and facts about trying to beat the breathalyzer.

Myth: Sucking pennies. Most people know that sucking on a penny, or any other kind of change, doesn’t trick the breathalyzer into registering a falsely low blood alcohol concentration (BAC). Even sillier is that the people who believe it think the penny trick works because of the penny’s high concentration of copper. Pennies have been made with 97.5% zinc since the 1980s.

Myth: breath mints. The misconception that the smell of alcohol is the same as alcohol itself fuels the nonsensical belief that breath fresheners can fool a breathalyzer test. All chewing gums, mints, and sprays mask the smell of alcohol on the breath, do not change the alcohol content of the breath, or affect the chemical reactions used to determine the amount of alcohol present. All breath fresheners, particularly mouthwashes, can possibly do is increase the amount of alcohol in the mouth recorded. Although breath analysis tests have ways to distinguish alcohol in the mouth from alcohol in the lungs, the last thing a person would want to do is increase the BAC reading.

Myth: Belching. Many police officers believe that breathalyzer results may be compromised if the subject burps while being tested, due to the increase in alcohol in the mouth caused by the burp. This belief is more fiction than reality. According to a 1992 University of Wisconsin study, belching had no effect on breath analysis test results, even when subjects belched directly into the instrument.

Myth: Underwear and feces. Yuck! It almost goes without saying that neither underwear consumption nor feces can trick a breathalyzer into registering a lower BAC, but it’s interesting to note that people have tried both. A 28-year-old Canadian man who was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving ate the crotch of his underwear, believing he would absorb the excess alcohol into his system. Another Canadian driver tried to foil a breathalyzer test by eating his own feces. Either it didn’t work or it had the opposite effect and increased BAC readings. The machine registered a BAC that was more than double the legal limit.

Myth: Zima. The alcohol in the sweet, pale malt liquor beverage was thought to be undetectable by breath-testing machines. Zima leaves little alcohol odor on the breath, despite the fact that it contains as much alcohol as any normal beer, so people (usually teenage drinkers) believed that alcohol could not be detected by a breathalyzer. Like breath fresheners, alcohol remains even when the smell is not present.

That’s a lot of myths. How about an objective way to lower a BAC reading?

Fact: Hyperventilation. Breathalyzer results will vary depending on the breathing pattern of the person being tested. In one study, subjects drank moderate amounts of alcohol, after which their BAC levels were measured by gas chromatographic analysis of their breath. They then took breath analysis tests using various breathing patterns. When subjects held their breath for 30 seconds before exhaling, their BAC readings increased by more than 15%. When they hyperventilated for 20 seconds immediately before testing, their BAC readings dropped by more than 10 percent.

On the other hand, hyperventilation could make you dizzy and affect your performance on other common road sobriety tests, such as walking in a straight line or balancing on one foot.

These are just a few of the “beat the breathalyzer” tales. What is the moral of most of these fables? If you think he can fool the breathalyzer, he’s probably fooling himself. If he really wants to beat the breathalyzer, he just doesn’t drink and drive, and he’ll have nothing to worry about.

Copyright 2006 Lance Knowlton