18-year-old provisional driver blows 0.112 after consuming Big Mac and bottle of water

A PROVISIONAL licence driver who blew a breath test reading twice the legal limit despite not drinking a drop of alcohol has raised concerns regarding the reliability of electronic equipment used by NT police

A provisional licence driver has blown twice the legal limit at an RBT in Alice Springs despite consuming zero alcohol. Picture: Supplied

A PROVISIONAL licence driver who blew a breath test reading twice the legal limit despite not drinking a drop of alcohol has raised concerns regarding the reliability of electronic equipment used by Northern Territory police.

The 18-year-old was stopped at a Random Breath Testing (RBT) unit on the corner of Madigan and Head St in Alice Springs about 9.50pm, and blew a reading of 0.112.

He had consumed a Big Mac and bottle of water approxiamtely 15 minutes prior to being stopped.

In the Northern Territory, the alcohol limit for a provisional licence holder is zero per cent BAC.

The driver was handcuffed and put in a police vehicle, with three officers escorting him to Alice Springs Police Station.

There, a separate device was used to conduct a secondary RBT, resulting in a nil reading for prohibited substances of any kind.

The driver is known to the Centralian Advocate and agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.

“This was my first time being arrested, the first time in handcuffs and in the back of a paddy wagon,” he said.

“At the time, I was really shocked, I wasn’t told why I was handcuffed.

“By the time we got back to the station I was calmer, I knew the test was wrong and that what was happening wasn’t OK.”

“I was sitting there in handcuffs waiting for the second test to exonerate me.”

Sergeant Conan Robertson of the Southern Traffic Operations Unit told the Advocate that like all electronic equipment, the roadside tester can have faults that return incorrect results.

“This is rare and results in the machine being immediately removed from circulation and returned for repairs,” said Sergeant Robertson.

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“If a positive reading is returned people are then subjected to a breath analysis that will return an exact result, in this case it returned a reading of 0.00 BrAC.”

“Alcohol based products such as mouth wash can affect results as these devices provide an indication of someone’s alcohol concentration only.”

A McDonalds spokesperson told the Centralian Advocate that the matter was not related to them, as a consequence of the secondary RBT rendering the initial test a false positive.