New Draft Rules for Evidential Breath Analysers to Enhance Public Safety and Trust

The new rules mandate that Evidential Breath Analysers follow standardized testing procedures, ensuring consistent and reliable results across different devices.

The Legal Metrology Division of the Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India, has introduced new draft rules for Evidential Breath Analysers under the Legal Metrology (General) Rules, 2011. This initiative is designed to ensure the accuracy and reliability of breath analyzers used by law enforcement and workplaces, thereby enhancing public safety and trust.

The verified and standardized Evidential Breath Analysers will accurately measure blood alcohol concentration from breath samples, ensuring the swift and effective identification of intoxicated individuals. This measure is aimed at preventing alcohol-related incidents on the road, contributing to safer travel for everyone.

The new rules mandate that Evidential Breath Analysers follow standardized testing procedures, ensuring consistent and reliable results across different devices. This standardization aims to foster public confidence in the fairness and accuracy of enforcement actions.

According to the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, Evidential Breath Analysers must be verified and stamped to ensure their accuracy. This verification protects individuals from wrongful penalties due to faulty equipment and helps maintain the integrity of legal and workplace policies.

Evidential Breath Analysers provide a non-invasive way to measure blood alcohol content, offering quick and painless sample collection. The rapid analysis capabilities allow law enforcement officers to make swift, informed decisions, enhancing the effectiveness of roadside checks.

Making stamped and verified Evidential Breath Analysers available to the public can raise awareness about the effects of alcohol on impairment and the legal limits for safe operation of vehicles and machinery. This encourages responsible behavior and informed decision-making.

The draft rules define "Evidential Breath Analysers" as instruments that measure and display the breath alcohol mass concentration of exhaled human breath within specified error limits. These rules apply to breath analysers that use mouthpieces for sampling breath and include various tests to ensure the instrument's accuracy. Yearly verification will ensure the device's accuracy during use.

The draft rules outline several technical requirements for Evidential Breath Analysers, including:

Displaying only the final measurement result.

Including a printer to record results and ensuring the device does not operate without paper.

Providing additional printed information along with the blood alcohol concentration result.

Reporting results in different formats, such as blood alcohol concentration in blood.

The new draft rules for Evidential Breath Analysers represent a significant step towards improving road safety and enforcement reliability. By ensuring that Evidential Breath Analysers are accurate, standardized, and easy to use, these rules will benefit the public through better enforcement, increased safety, and enhanced trust in legal and workplace alcohol testing. The Department of Consumer Affairs remains committed to safeguarding public welfare through rigorous standards and reliable measurement instruments.