City police procure new breathalysers to crack the whip on drunk driving

The equipment captures the image of tipplers while they blow into it

Traffic Inspector (Coimbatore West) B.K. Sadhasivam demonstrating a new equipment to detect drunk driving at the office of the Coimbatore City Police Commissioner on Friday. S. SIVA SARAVANAN

The Coimbatore City Police have procured 25 Alcovisors – fuel cell sensor type breathalysers that capture the image of people when they blow into the tube attached to the equipment.

The breathalysers were distributed to police personnel by Commissioner K. Periaiah on Friday in the presence of Deputy Commissioner of Traffic Sujith Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Lakshmi and other officials.

The new equipmenthas inbuilt storage capacity to save data of up to 2,000 offenders with their photographs, driving licence number and other data and comes with GPS facility,, a spokesperson of the supplier said.

Once a person blows into the tube attached to the equipment, it estimates the blood alcohol content within 30 seconds.

If the level is above 30 mg, the offender will be fined on the spot and a printed receipt from the equipment along with the photograph and details of the offender will be issued. The data stored in the equipment can be transferred to the servers of the Police Department once it reaches full capacity.

The data thus saved in the server would help detect habitual offenders and the data can be shared with the Transport Department authorities, police officials said.

The new equipment also saves the traffic constables from putting up with bad breath, when tipplers breath out on their faces.