NSW Drink Driving & Traffic Offences

I have been charged with drink driving, 1st offence. I’m on my P’s and my alcohol reading was 0.2%. Admittedly I had a few drinks the night before with some mates, however I had waited till 10am before I drove down to the local shop to buy some smokes. I was stopped by the police before I got there. I was surprised that I had any grog in my system as I had stopped drinking around 3am. I didn’t feel alcohol affected, and I suspect that the machine may have given a false reading, can I challenge that? Can I get some kind of expert to show that reading couldn’t have been correct as I had stopped drinking? I need my license for work, and I would lose my job if lose my license.

Alcohol can take some time to be eliminated from a person’s body. It depends upon a variety of factors (a person’s sex , physiology, whether consumed on empty stomach, etc), so putting to one side whether or not you can challenge really depends upon how much you had to drink. Remembering that one full strength stubbie can contain as much as 1.5 standard drinks, two stubbies in the first hour and you’ve already had 3 standard drinks. The body eliminate on average 1 standard drink per hour. You would have to wait an additional two hours of no drinking before driving. The only time expert evidence can be utilised is endeavouring to establish the act of consuming alcohol sometime after the vehicle has been driven, rather than before the vehicle was driven. In your case this limited defence would not be available as the problem you have seems to be miscalculating the residual alcohol left in your system and not allowing sufficient time to eliminate this alcohol.