Breathalyzers: Really, Really Complicated

Where would he be what's that called? Uh Chambers? Now that's no, No, it was that the It was a a bar. Oh it'll like, you know, like during the day, like for lunch, and I remember on the promo for whatever, you know, news expose, a local news expose they had. It was, um, he not only passed the bar, he stopped and drank at it. I thought you were gonna say he was drinking while judging. Well that was the implication, is that he was doing the morning session out to lunch,

get drunk, and then going back and doing the afternoon session. Crocked. The guy thinks it's like nineteen sixty one or something. I would actually love for my judge to be slightly hammered. I don't know, man, because you know what, he's a mean drunk yeah in trouble. Yeah, exactly precisely. Um So I guess that's as good as set up as any. Right, Well,

I mean, why don't you want the judge drinking. It's not just because you want him to, you know, pass a sensible sentence, right, It's also he's got to get from the bar back to the courthouse, and on route he could take out an entire family. Yeah, and I doubt if the judges got his rob on on his bicycle, although you shouldn't be driving a bicycle really drunk down the road either. And plus I don't think they're allowed to wear the robes outside of the court. I would

wear mine everywhere. I know you would, Chuck, And you wear nothing underneath it, right, Chuck. Give us some stats. There's some pretty add stats from two thousand eight that I know you have on hand, Yes, Josh, if you're talking about traffic accidents that result in death. In two thousand and eight, there were um a little more than thirty seven thousand total deaths by traffic accident, and about

close to fourteen thousand of those were alcohol related. Right, that's thirty seven percent of all traffic related deaths were because of alcohol. Yeah, and it's kind of hovered in that range I noticed of the past few years. Um, but I went back just for curiosity's sake, and in of deaths were alcohol related, and there were twice as many. There were twenty six thousand alcohol related deaths by you know,

vehicular means. I wonder though, if it's not just because of more driving DRAWNK I'm sure that's something to do with it. But if that it's because there were fewer SUVs on the road as well, it's probably that would skew the ratio. Probably not as advanced testing more lax. I think back then you could literally have an open beer in the car if you weren't drunk, just drive holding the beer and you're like, it's my first one, right, what are you gonna do? You just take a couple

of SIPs while the cop pulls you over. That's a the days, Well, Chuck, we are not a teetotal or society. We tried that once, it was called prohibition. It didn't work very well, right, you know, the mentality behind prohibition was alcoholics have to have alcohol. The rest of us who are in alcoholics don't have to have alcohol, so we can reasonably give it up for the benefit of

the alcoholics. Right. It didn't work, So we are you know, we we know everybody likes to take a drink here there, So there is a certain amount of alcohol that you're allowed to have. I think in most states it's a zero point zero eight. I think it's every state now. But how to test that? Yes, there's a couple of ways.

There's a few ways, um, blood urine. But I think you could make a really excellent case that a police officer, um removing a sample of blood or collecting the urine of a driver he suspects as drunk, would you know, reasonably violate the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure,

as well as a couple of human rights. Exactly, you don't want some cops stabbing you with a hypodermic, right, but your breath is expelled without any expectation of privacy, which I think is why we have the breathalyzer and why it's in use. Talk about the breathalyzer truck, which you could also call the most confounded contraptions ever known to man. They're way more advanced than I thought they

ever were. I thought there was a little gnome inside that was like smells like Budweiser and lots of it, and then no, yeah, no, it's like some of these, some of these contraptions, there's um a few we're going to talk about. There's three main types, but some of them seem almost um Rube Goldberg ask like total you would expect at some point there's a candle that that's going to burn, a stream that drops an anvil, it hits a catapult that like she's kitten somewhere, like that's

one of the processes. Yeah. I just want to point out too before we move on that the point oh a. You know, they've done test over the years and they found that point oh four actually impairs a human being. Yeah, the Medical Association says point oh five five. So I just think I find it odd that that wouldn't be the limit that they would say you can get a little impaired, and that's fine, just go ahead and get behind the wheel, but just not this level of impaired.

It just seems we should be blink really hard and frequently while you're driving. I guess that just shows that we are not a teetotal society. So they do understand, like you might have a drink at a bar, having dinner and then get in your car and go home, and that's okay. I guess that's what they say. Yeah, So I mean, at the very least, you can't be arrested for it, although I understand if it's right around

point oh eight, it's at the cops discretion. Yeah, And whether or not even get a breathalyzer, yeah, because not all of them have them. And then I think all of them do the field sobriety tests first, because the breathalyzers sort of a pain to get going, so right, but I can do the test. I think the presence the fact that the breathalyzer exists, if you do a field sobriety test and arrest the person without giving him a breathalyzer, I think that that's probably frequently acquitted, is it,

I would think so? Yeah, And I've never been I've never blown into a breathalyzer, never been even pulled over for alcohol. Good buddy, Moving on, so let's talk about the breathalyzer um from this article written by Craig Freud and Reach PhD, the only PhD who writes for the site Your buddy, Right, No, I don't know. Oh, I thought, oh, that's right, Tom, Tom chif he has a PhD in School of Hard Knocks. Um. I was surprised to find out how old these things are. In the nineteen forties,

they were testing the blood alcohol content by the breath. Yeah, they were called drunk a meters back then. They really were. And it had some guy with like a crumpled fedora and like stars popping around his face. They really were, though they were called drunken meters. And I believe that they did not have like a nose on there that turned more red as you blew into it was like you know, if you if you blew three pink elephates, you're going downtown, buddy. But yeah, that that was when

they were first used. But the actual breathalyzer trademark breathalyzer was invented in fifty four by Dr Borkenstein. Yes, from the Indiana State Police, right, yeah, And um that was another thing. I learned that the Indiana State Police have doctors on their payroll. Yeah, I guess so, inventor doctors. Yeah. Um. And the premise of all of the um breath analyzing machines. I don't know what that that category would be called.

That sounds right, breath analyzing machine, breath alcohol content, breath analyzing machines, a breaking bubble, right, a piping feature. Um. They they all work on the same principle, and that's that alcohol is actually absorbed into um, the lungs, yeah,

and in your blood. Yeah, Like you drink. You take a drink of alcohol, and you know, if you're a reasonable adult and you've been drinking for a little while, you know that it doesn't like, you don't digest that alcohol, and it doesn't like change into maple syrup once it hits your body. It stays as alcohol in your blood to be delicious if it changes into communile syrup. Right.

And there's actually a predictable ratio between the blood alcohol content, which is what screws you up and makes you like blink really heavy and drive into other cars, and the aviolar content, which is what's in your lungs and your breath. Right, And it's a one is the ratio. So if you have um milli leaders of alcohol in your breath. You've got one milli leader in your blood stream. That's the formula. That's the basis for all this, right, all breathalyzers or

breath alcohol monitoring machine. So so considered this right there, just the fact that we're measuring breath, we're actually measuring a reflection of the blood alcohol content. Okay, that's that's step one removed from actuality. Yes, okay, but again remember the fact that breathalyzers exist um shows a deep and continual um commitment by the state to protect human rights, individual rights, and protect human lives. Right that that too,

of course, Chuck. So let's talk about the first one, the breathalyzers, the Kleenex, the aspirin, the xerox of the breath analyzing machines. Uh, Josh, that is the I don't know if it's the most common. I couldn't get any stats on which you know. I think Atlanta uses the infrared one. Actually, do you have like an inn at the d a's office in Atlanta? You know a lot about Atlantic that I do. The breathalyzer, Josh uses a

chemical reaction that basically makes it change color. So what happens is you you blow into and I'm glad I'm explaining this one because this is the only one I truly understood. I got um the fuel cell one. All right, Well, hopefully someone can come in and explain what the infrared one means. Maybe Matt. Who's guest producing Matt, Matt, are you still with that band? He says, yes, Blinds and scissors. Uh so, Josh, the breath the actual breathalyzer. What you

do is you blow into it. There are two glass vials with a chemical reaction mixture and then a system of photo cells. Why is that funny? I don't know. Uh. So you breathe into the device and it bubbles up, and the bubbles to a mixture of sulfuric acid, tassium dichromate, silver nitrate, and water. Right, so that you have reddish orange dichromate. Right, that's key. And when you breathe into that and it's bubbling it, actually the alcohol in it

converts it to a green chromium ion. Right. Yeah, It changes the color to green depending on how much alcohol you've had. It varies on how much color change takes place. Right. Okay, so you're with us so far, right, are you seeing? Like how how difficult this is getting So we've converted alcohol content to a color, right, Okay, go ahead, Chuck. So, like I said, the degree of color change is related

to how much alcohol you expel for your breath. So what happens then, is it it goes over to the photo cell system and there's an electric current that causes a needle to move up. Okay, So the color remember this, it's gone from reddish orange, not even red or orange. Just to further comp it's a reddish orange that goes to green, which is weird. The wavelength is measured to determine how green that green ion is because Chuck, remember

the butterfly Wings episode. Like like color exists in different wavelengths, it's how it's differentiated. So there's something measuring the wavelength, right, and then it's comparing the green to the reddish orange the original unreacted solution. Yes, And that's what's connected to the meter. Because the cop doesn't just hold it up like a pregnancy test, thank god, and say that looks sort of green to me at least in this like yellowish green, rather than as he's holding it next to

your green car, you know. So it's actually hooked up to a device an electric current moves the needle, and then the cop then rotates a knob to bring the needle back to its original zero. Reading is what I gather and how much he turns that knob. The knob has the point oh one point oh two, and that will tell tell him or her, if it's a female cop,

how much alcohol you have in your breath. So if you see, if you take a breathalyzer and you see a cop turning a knob and shaking head like wow, and he keeps turning it and turning it, you're probably in trouble. You're crocked. You're crocked exactly. So um, the blood alcohol content has been converted into a color. The color is compared to the original unreacted color. That disparity has turned into an electrical pulse which moves the needle, and you move the needle back to zero by turning

a knob. In the amount of degree the knob that's required to get it back to zero is how drunk you are. And then the basketballs on top of the mouse and it's trapped. That's a great recap to by the way, thank you. That was That was the only one I really actually understood too. Well. This should be fun then, because up next Josh is the intoxilizer, and

that's the one that uses infrared spectron spectroscopy. So not only can you convert um blood alcohol content where your breath alcohol content into a color, you can shoot infrared light at it and measure how much is absorbed and then figure out how much alcohol is in the blood

using that standard ratio. Right, Yes, And that's possible because molecules vibrate constantly, and when you shoot in for a light into a molecule, it will the vibration will change and the bonds, the literal chemical bonds will actually change, right, And we know how much, like say, um, a carbon to oxygen bond in ethanol alcohol, which is what is in our bloodstream, right, how much will be absorbed in

how much would be reflected back? Right? Yeah? Okay, so once again you're dealing with wavelengths, right, yeah, So checking

this one, it's UM. I strongly strongly recommend uh people who are listening to this podcast go onto the site afterward and look at the batalizer article because there's some really great illustrations that I wouldn't have been able to get this without looking at these um But this one looks kind of like a nitrous ox side chamber, but with two holes in it, right, Um, And then at the end there's a Courts lamp. So the Courts lamp generates an infrared beam that shoots through the nitrous ox

side chamber. Right, you blow into the top hole and your breath is in there, and it exhales through the other hole right onto a spinning wheel. Right. Well, no, it goes, it goes through the infrared beam, and then it goes onto this, Yeah, this filter wheel, and each of the there's different lenses in this filter wheel polarized too.

I guess just let certain colored ions passed through, right, I know, the the different um I guess the different infrared beams make it through this color wheel hit a photo cell, which then interprets these things the wavelengths into an electrical pulse again, and then that ultimately hits a microprocessor where the information is translated into the blood alcohol content the percentage. Could they make it any more difficult? They could. I think the breath lizer may be more

difficult than that one, more complicated. Yeah, this one just seems like Holy cow, because there's like a filter wheel and infrared light. Yeah, but I think they're equally complicated. And that's what they use in Atlanta. This is the one they use, the intoxicator, the intoxicalizer, the eradicator. The intoxicator would be you and I. Did you see the kids in the hall on the soup recently? No, they reunited for the first time. Yeah they did. Ah, they're

back with the show. Yeah, to promote mini series or something. They don't. I think it's on HBO or so, although they got nothing on the State. Yeah, you're a big State fan, aren't you love this guy? You love David Wayne, I do in came Marino. Those are my boys. So josh uh, that's pretty much it for the intoxicalizer, right bing bang boom done. Uh. Now this is the the Alco Sensor. I love that there's two, the three, and the four. I guess the one and the two went

the way of the Dodo, right. Yeah, they just said everybody was drunk all the time, version one and version two or the drunk a meters of the yea. Then they changed the name two Alco sensor. And luckily the Alco sensor UM is perfected now and it uses fuel cell technology. It's kind of the same thing that they're talking about for cars, which is crazy. It's pretty much the exact same thing. You have a positive post and a negative post, and then between you have a um

an electro light, which is just basically a thin film, right. Yeah, that the poster platinum electrodes for all you chemistry nerds out there, right, so this one has, uh, the the suspected drunk driver low through a UM the say, the negative post, that the platinum negative post, and this oxidizes the alcohol present in the breath, right yes, and that produces protons, electrons, and something called acetic acid, right So, but the the acetic acid is actually vinegar, so it's

actually producing vinegar in that weird okay that these things stink after a few uses. Um. The the really important part here is that it strips the ethanol, I believe the hydrogen, specifically of its electrons. Now, electrons have this thing called electron flow where they naturally gravitate from negative side a negative post of like a chattery, to the positive and the electron flow, this movement of electrons is actually where we get our electricity from. This is exactly

how a fuel cell works. In a in a car that runs on hydrogen. Um, so you direct these the electro light won't let the electrons go through, Okay, So these negatively charged electrons are run through a circuit. In the middle of the circuit, you have, um, this electrical pulse that's there, this electrical electrical meter that's reading the pulse the current right as it passes through to the

positive side to rejoin its friends. And however, I guess the more electrons there are present, the more blood alcohol there is. So this this meter converts you know, a high voltage to you know the equivalent B A C. Right, So the more alcohol is oxidized, basically the great of the current. And then the microprocessor reads this current and says being drunk, right or point oh eight? Yeah, this is actually the simplest one, you think, So, yeah, that's

for my money, buddy. I'm going with the what is this one called again and toxiclizer because it sounds the coolest. I'm going with the gnome. That's the simplest one. This is drink. Um. I got a couple of things here. Um. Obviously we're not encouraging anyone to drink and drive. Ever, no, I think that's really important because they do say that

even one drink can impair you. But they do have some They floated some stats out there about how much you can supposedly drink and and still not blow a d u. I yeah, they say a hundred and eighty pound man, which show me a hundred and eighty pound man. Come on, you gotta get above two bills if you're a dude. Yeah, I think so too. I don't. I think the trend is going the other way though, jeans and everything. Well, I'm gonna have a shirt that says

real men way two hundred pounds or more. I'll bet we'd get one on our Facebook page that we do. So a hundred and eighty pound dude can supposedly be at point eight after four drinks, but they don't give an amount of time either. Yeah, that if I have four drinks, and what kind of drinks if I have four? So let's say that it's that standard like one shot, you know, one number of ounces of wine and then like I think of wine or a twelve ounce of

beer or a shot is supposedly all the same. Dude, if I have four shots, yeah, I'm I'm definitely impaired. You don't want me getting behind the wheel of a car four shots in an hour, especially exactly. But I think this should be I think they say, like the cop that I read an interview with from Atlanta said that he says, if you can stay within one drink per hour, you're probably gonna be okay, and you shouldn't sweat it, right. And I've also adopted drinking a glass

of water while drinking a drink. Oh yeah, because it's it's not necessarily the dilution, although I suspect that that does have an effect. Um. But number one, you're expelling alcohol more frequently because you're drinking a lot of water. What three urine? Yeah, yeah, but that doesn't change your blood alcohol hold on. And then secondly you're drinking, you're spreading it out over more time because you're not just drinking alcohol the whole time. You drinking alcohol and water.

So that's say, doubling the amount of time it takes to finish a drink. So in theory, you could play boggle while you drank and as long as it took more times. But I wouldn't play boggle. You couldn't thinking men tavern, they have all those games there you No, I'm not plugging them. It's just a boat local bar that has like board games, so it's fun. Do you want to give the address? No, I don't. It's on

College Avenue indicator. Um. But the same cop also verified what I thought, which is they always do a field sobriety test first, which is I mean there's different variations the count. Your count better do the ABC's backwards. Yeah, I can't do that right now, dead sober, there's no way you could. I think you should right now. No, I've tried it. I know it starts with Z and uh. Here's another tip too, is you should never ever sing

the alphabet song. If you're pulled over by a cop and they asked you to say the alphabet, not a good move would singing the song like people? I think it wasn't that judge, but some public figure recently did that. I think one of the like when I Na Mel Gibson sang the Alpha that song. Uh, and Josh. Of course there are other And like I said, we're not telling you how to beat an alcohol test. No. I think the point here is for for this stuff we're

about to talk about. We're talking about the the aviolar concentration the amount of alcohol concentrated in your breath. It's not constant. It depends on what phase of the breath you exhale. Um. And I think people who are um a little drunk or drunk and are thinking like this could use this to their advantage. But at the same time, cops might use the opposite to their advantage as well.

And I think it's smart to know, you know, so you don't get an unnecessary beef against you well, and it provides it results in an inaccurate reading, and you want accuracy. Whether it's you trying to influence it or the cop trying to influence it, they can be influenced. Like so, hyperventilating, Josh, will lower You're reading. This feels wrong, it does, but it actually will lower. They've done studies and if you hyperventilate for twenty seconds, it will actually

decrease the reading by ten. And let's say if you ran up a couple of flights of stairs they and then blow in. They said it will decrease it by twenty because it's a more shallow breath. And I think that the breath at the bottom of the lungs is richer in alcohol content. That's why the cops says, blow harder and deeper when you're blowing on the breathalyzer, right, That's that's I I have a problem with anybody trying

to UM, trying to get out of you know, breathalyzer reading. UM. But I also have a problem with UM a police officer trying to jack up in a breathalyzer reading. And apparently if you if you breathe really deeply, really hard, you exhale from the bottom of your lungs, the reading can be UM one and a half times more with the actual blood alcohol content is which is significant when you're talking about like point oh eight percent or you know,

seven point one percent or something like that. Yeah. Uh. The only problem with these as far as someone out there thinking, you know what, I'll just I can hyperventilate beat this is you forget that the cop is there at all times. You can't hyperventilate in front of you. Do you're gonna get shot in the back. So what you're probably gonna end up doing is breathing just like they say to and you'll be pinched. I think ultimately, though,

all numbers can be tossed out the window. If you're a driver, you know, if you're impaired, if you shouldn't be driving. Yeah, don't and um, don't believe any of those myths about pennies in your mouth or mints or onions or in nothing will affect your blood alcoholic content. The MythBusters blew that wide open. Snopes blew it wide open. Common sense blows up wide open. And uh, you can also I checked into it. You can buy a breathalyzer. They have consumer models, right, and they have some that

are hooked up to the ignition of your car. Yeah, the one lote of you start. Yeah, but apparently you can get the top rated one is about a hundred and fifty bucks. So if you're that big of a lush that you want to purchase one of these and carried around, or maybe you're being really responsible. I mean, it depends on how you look at it. Yeah, I

finish the sentence. Well, then you can buy one for a buck fifty, keep in your purse or your or your pocket, and then before you leave the bar, just blow into it and say, you know what, I should weigh a little while. That's so, that's breathalyzers. And again we would strongly recommend you go well, we strongly recommend you don't drink and drive and um. Secondly, we strongly recommend you go onto how stuff works dot com and

look up breathalyzers. You're gonna find some pretty You're you're gonna find some illustrations that will make you go, Okay, I get it, nitrous ocks side charge, I know it. Right. Then, all right, Chuck, what do we have? Do we have listener mail? Yeah, well let's do the listener mail chime. And now let's do a little bit of plugging first. Okay, plug it south By Southwest. Yes, go to H T T P colon slash slash panel picker one word dot s x s W dot com, sign up and you

can vote for us. We're under interactive panels stuff you should know. Yeah, and it'll walk you through. You know, we're trying to get to south By Southwest next march on a panel and visit the fine folks of Austin, Texas and perhaps do a trivia been there too if we can, If we can make the panel, so if you click on that and click your little thumbs up to vote for it, it'll say, oh, you haven't signed up yet, and it'll walk you through the sign up procedure.

And I need to point out that will not put you on some spam list. You won't get emails. You know, they swear up and down. Yeah, they promise, it's just so they can verify that you're a real person and all that. And then, uh, we are on Facebook and Twitter. We're no Steve Slater, but we're worth following. Uh and um KIVA www dot k I v a dot org slash team slash stuff. You should know we have our

own micro lending team. If you want to learn a little bit about that, And if you have questions or you're confused about micro lending and why we do it, you can read our two part blog post why we Lend on Cuba s Team s Y s K. Yeah, Josh wrote a really great long form too part thing that's blog post. It really spells out CIVA and everything you need to know about it, and well, thank you. Um, I almost forgot chuckers. Um. We have a very robust

T shirt gallery. Um, not just the winning designs, but a lot of the ones that came close not so close, basically pretty much all of them. I think there's like ten fifteen that aren't up there, but there's a bunch more and it's like looking into the minds of like stuff you should know listeners. It's really interesting. There's some cool designs on they see him go to um let's see how stuff works dot com slash t shirt pictures and it's te hyphened shirt hyphen pictures dot htm and

that will take you to it. Awesome. Yeah, it's a listener mail. Finally, Okay, Josh, I'm gonna call this love from Jamaica. Remember how in the in the grow Houses one when we talked about I thought Jamaica might be the highest rate of marijuana consumption. Yeah, it turned out it was Papua New Guinea. Yeah, and then Africa, all over Africa. Um. So this is from Shoonnari in Jamaica. She says. Here in Jamaica, we don't have indoor grow houses,

but more outside cultivation. People grow it outside in deep, overgrown bush country, far away from prying eyes, and also in the mountains where people don't venture much. They grow with them amongst regular crops like bananas and coffee and

sugar to mask the appearance from the sky. And they're normally family operations or local, locally based where the whole neighborhood, so to speak, we'll keep a watch out for cops, and the whole neighborhood benefits in some way from the influx of cash that the marijuana provides plus free weed, I guess. So. Uh. Sometimes the local law enforcement will raid these growing operations, but the growers still will set traps for them that will hamper their willingness to even

go into these areas. So you got like a badger trap, and they're like a tiger pit. Yeah, cops like, I ain't going in there. Yeah, you see one cop fall into a tiger pit, you're not gonna follow him. Well, listen to this. One trap I saw on the news sometime back. Takes the form of hidden water spikes. So they'll basically make a muddy pond and grow marijuana on top of this. And in these ponds there are solid paths and there are also paths with spikes sticking up.

That's a tiger pit. Oh, is that what it is? Yeah, it's a hole with like that. You dig a pit and then at the bottom there's these sharpened sticks all sticking up, so when you fall in, you're in deep, deep trouble and my blessing. I thought a tiger pit was like a pit with a tiger in it. It may have a tiger in it, but it's in pale line steaks. I wouldn't last five minutes in the Jamaican

Jamaica in no way. Uh. In general though, because of our Rastafarian heritage, where marijuana is part of the religious practice, marijuana was illegal but decriminalized for domestic use. So as a result, seeing someone smoking pot in the open is not strange, but it can land you a fine. So this comes from Shinari. I think I said SHARONI didn't I Shari in Jamaica? He said, CHARONI doesn't ring a bell all right, So thank you Shinari for listening to Yeah,

uh yeah, I didn't know we had any listeners. And no, she's not in Jamaica. That's her home of Jamaica. Now she lives everything, does she really? Okay? Well, thanks Shinnari. We appreciate you keeping the home fires burning down there in Jamaica. Do you have any stories about tiger pits or other kind of clever traps or rude group? Goldberg esque Divide says, we want to hear about him, right, Chuck. We want to see schematics. Actually, you can email them

to us at stuff podcast. At how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you