The New Westminster Police are rolling out a new breathalyzer that’s new to British Columbia.
It’s called the Alco Sensor FST, and New Westminster is the first police force in B.C. to purchase them.
Criminal lawyer Paul Doroshenko says the current breathalyzers being used are a “25 year old technology.”
Still, the new technology isn’t perfect either.
“It’s got a lot of the same problems as the old one,” says Doroshenko. “It can’t distinguish whether it’s alcohol from your mouth or your lungs, if you’ve been smoking and you blow into it, it will damage the device, and if you burp, you will still get an inaccurate reading, because it can’t distinguish what the source of the alcohol is.”