Over the next few days, your chances of being arrested or pulled over for driving under the influence of alcohol will dramatically increase. As we head towards the Christmas and New Year's Eve holidays, there will be more sobriety checkpoints and patrols in Los Angeles, and that means a much higher risk of a DUI arrest. Just in time for the expected spike in DUIs comes a new breathalyzer app, which alerts you if you have consumed too much alcohol.
The gadget is called the BacTrack Mobile Breathalyzer, and is available on both the iOS and Android platforms. The gadget is designed to connect via Bluetooth, to a similarly named app that is available for free on both iOS and Android. Once the connection is made, the appsets off a countdown timer, and at the end of the timer, you have to blow into the device. After a couple of seconds, you will receive a blood-alcohol concentration reading as well as an interpretation of the reading.
For instance, if you have recorded a blood-alcohol concentration reading of .10, the gadget will give you a message informing you that your judgment is now impaired, and motor skills are debilitated. To be fair, the gadget does this for every reading above .01.
Tests have indicated that the gadget is fairly reliable, and delivers a fairly accurate reading of blood-alcohol concentration. The app costs $ 150, and is designed to deliver warnings against driving with any amount of alcohol in your system. According to the developers of the app, driving with any intoxication level can be dangerous and can increase your risk of an accident or being arrested for DUI. However, at approximately $ 150, the gadget is fairly expensive, so it remains to be seen how popular it will become.
