Every day, almost 30 people in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes — that’s one person every 50 minutes.
Alcohol is a substance that reduces the function of the brain, impairing thinking, reasoning, and muscle coordination. All these abilities are essential to operating a vehicle safely.
As alcohol levels rise in a person’s system, the negative effects on the central nervous system increase, too. Alcohol is absorbed directly through the walls of the stomach and the small intestine.
Then it passes into the bloodstream where it accumulates until it is metabolized by the liver. The alcohol level is measured by the weight of the alcohol in a certain volume of blood. This is called Blood Alcohol Concentration, or BAC. At a BAC of .08 grams of alcohol per deciliter (g/dL) of blood, crash risk increases exponentially. Alcohol Monitoring California NHTSA
SoberTrack remote breathalyzer from Securus Monitoring Solutions provides extremely accurate breath-alcohol testing in real-time. Test results are delivered after the test, without having to wait for the enrollee to get home potentially hours later to transmit test results via a home-based cellular device.
The SoberTrack device is a GPS-enabled handheld mobile breath alcohol monitoring unit. A SoberTrack device is a one-piece unit that is fully portable for breath alcohol testing anytime–anywhere. Participants blow into the disposable straw when instructed to do so by SoberTrack and the unit reports all test results to our Internet-based software, VeriTracks, using nationwide cellular service.
The SoberTrack device is designed to be a portable, lightweight, remote breath alcohol testing device that combines cellular, digital camera, and fuel cell technology. Users can take tests anywhere, using various methods such as random, fixed, and/or on-demand test.
It can be easily carried in our supplied case along with spare testing straws. One unique feature of SoberTrack is that it uses GPS to identify the location of each test performed (along with locations before and after the test).
The GPS capability lets the agents know the participant’s location when taking a test. Test results can be sent to the agent by email or text message. SoberTrack will emit an audible tone when the participant needs to be tested. The participant acknowledges test notification through the touch screen.
SoberTrack is seamlessly integrated with VeriTracks™, our secure web-based electronic monitoring platform that allows agencies to easily schedule regular and random breath-alcohol tests. Each test conducted bySoberTrack captures the time and GPS location of where the test occurred, a high-resolution photograph of the enrollee taking the test, and an accurate BrAC number value (e.g., 0.080) that are used by law enforcement agencies across the country.
The device requires a deep lung blow that must be sustained for over 5 seconds at a pressure required to access the air in the lungs. During a test sequence, the advance digital camera takes multiple images to provide for a more complete test review, eliminate blurry or partial images, and to provide image comparison to the profile image. In low light settings the device is equipped with a LED light which automatically turns on to assist in obtaining the best picture quality possible.
The system confirms each enrolees identity on each high-resolution image taken with each test. A comparison of a testing photo to a reference photo is done by VeriTracks at Securus Monitoring Center within 10 minutes of the test being completed. The completion of the test will be displayed on the touch screen display of the SoberTrack indicating if the test is completed or if re-test sequences are required with the configured re-test time in minutes. If no re-test is required the device will return to a blank screen. The device displays the status of the battery using icons when the screen is touched.
Resource:
Mothers Against Drunk Driving
United States Department of Transportation
Electronic Monitoring California
Key Facts about Alcoholism and why Alcohol Monitoring is Important
