title: The accuracy of handheld pre-arrest breath test instruments as a predictor of the evidential breath alcohol test results.
abstract: Drunk driving is a serious threat to public safety. All available and appropriate tools for curbing this threat should be employed to their full extent. The handheld pre-arrest breath test instrument (PBT) is one tool for identifying the alcohol-impaired driver and enforcing drunk driving legislation. A set of data was evaluated (n = 1779) where the PBT instrument was employed in drunk driving arrests to develop a multivariate predictive model. When maintained and operated by trained personnel, the PBT provides a reasonable estimate of the evidential test result within the relevant forensic range (95% prediction interval:  ± 0.003 g/210 L). ROC analysis shows that a multivariate model for PBT prediction of the evidentiary alcohol concentration above versus below the legal limit of 0.08 g/210 L has excellent performance with an AUC of 0.96. These results would be of value in evidential hearings seeking to admit the PBT results in drunk driving trials.
authors.affiliation: The Mountain-Whisper-Light Statistics, 1827 23rd Avenue East, Seattle, WA, 98112.
authors.forename: Nayak L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Polissar
authors.forename: Wassana
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Suwanvijit
authors.forename: Rod G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Gullberg
mesh_terms: D001944:Breath Tests / Q000295:instrumentation*; D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants / Q000032:analysis*; D000066448:Driving Under the Influence / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D000431:Ethanol / Q000032:analysis*; D053593:Forensic Toxicology; D006801:Humans; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012372:ROC Curve; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants; D000431:Ethanol
keywords: breath alcohol; forensic science; multivariate model; pre-arrest breath test