Testing others? Why it’s best to use a breathalyzer designed for the job.

About 40% of our sales are for Employee Testing or Medical Profession (Occupational Health, NHS Trusts etc) – areas where really you would want to ensure the highest level of accuracy both for the body instigating the Test, and the person being tested.  And yet, the majority start by looking at the devices that are aimed SPECIFICALLY at the Personal User – those retailing under the £100 mark.

Don’t get me wrong, when used by the same person on a regular basis, the cheaper semi-conductor devices are fine for a person to check how long it takes for them to give a zero reading.  But when a person’s job (or possibly more?) depends on the accuracy of the result, we would always push towards the Fuel Cell devices.

There a few of good reasons for this – reliability, accuracy and shelf-life being the main 3.   A unit you buy for £100 WILL NOT, no matter WHAT claims are made, be anywhere near the standard of a Home Office device costing 8 times that.  If they were, they would be used by the UK Police.  It’s common sense.  And if you are testing others where a positive result could end up in either a Court or Tribunal situation (as the Police do, on a daily basis) it stands to reason you should use a device of a similar standard.

We have a few pages on our website that are specifically aimed at people Testing Others – reasons to perhaps think twice about using one of the cheaper Korean devices (no matter WHAT claims they make).  Why can’t I use a Personal Breathalyzer to test someone else ? deals mainly with the danger of false positives and the Duty of Care of the Employers;  you might also want to take a look at our Company Testing Overview as well as our Driver Information and Current UK Limits.

It’s coming up to that time of year where people start think about testing on a more regular basis;  be sure you have the device that lives upto its claims.