Could Police Tell if You've Been Drinking Simply by Firing a Laser at Your Car?

I have to admit when I first came across this piece of information I was skeptical. However it does seem to be being widely reported and so thought you all needed to know.  Police officers may soon have a powerful new tool to prevent drink drivers taking to the roads. A laser-based device has been developed in Poland that detects alcohol vapour inside a car as it passes by. This could catch drink drivers before they behave erratically

The system works by detecting tiny changes in the laser beam as it passes through vapour, Scientists tested the device by aiming its laser at a car passing by at a distance of up to 66ft (20m). The car's interior had been filled with alcohol vapour, simulating the exhalations of a drinker inside the vehicle, it is capable of detecting alcohol at concentrations as low as 0.1 per cent. Researchers admitted that the device would possibly also identify cars where the driver was sober but the passengers were not, or if there had been alcohol spilled in the car.

The laser system that was created by the Military University of Technology in Warsaw, is set up on the side of the road to monitor each car that passes by. If it detects alcohol vapours in the car, a message and a photo of the car, including its number plate, is sent to a police officer waiting down the road. That police officer will then stop the car and check for signs of alcohol using conventional tests. Even though the system may also stop cars where passengers were over the limit and not the driver it will still decrease the number of cars that have to be checked by police and, at the same time, will increase efficacy of stopping drunken drivers.’

‘We are already familiar with laser instruments used by the police for speed-limit enforcement,' said Marco Gianinetto of the Polytechnic University of Milan researcher commenting on the Polish research.‘Now these researchers have demonstrated how a laser device could be effectively used for detecting drunken drivers, and thereby helping to reduce the number of accidents caused by drivers under the influence of alcohol.

‘From the practical point of view, there seem to be some countermeasures, such as driving with windows open, solar screens on the side windows, etc., that can be applied by drivers to deceive the system,’ the authors wrote in their conclusion. However, such situations are very easily detected by the system, which sends this information to the policeman indicating that the car should be checked.’