Now that area law-enforcement officers are armed with the latest advancement for drunken-driving detection, documentation and prosecution, Charles Branson is looking forward to the next logical step: universal acceptance of the newest high-tech device, the Intoxilyzer 8000.

“If you look back in time, when the Intoxilyzer 5000 came out, there was a flurry of attempts to discredit the machine, and eventually all those attempts failed and the machine was the standard for many, many years,” said Branson, the Douglas County district attorney. “With the addition of the new machine, all of those same old arguments start coming up all over again: people try to attack that machine as not being credible.

“And so we’ll go through those attacks with this machine, and provided the machine performs as it’s supposed to perform, we’ll survive all those attacks and the machine will become the standard for the next 10 years or more.”

The Lawrence Police Department is the proud owner of an Intoxilyzer 8000, one of more than 200 machines purchased by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and delivered to agencies statewide. The machines test the breath of people to determine the amount of alcohol they have in their blood, a key component in the arrest and prosecution of suspected drunken drivers.

KDHE announced completion of its $1.5 million purchasing program this month.

“Thanks to the outstanding efforts of our staff and local partners, it has been a worthwhile investment in keeping Kansas travelers safe,” said Rod Bremby, KDHE secretary.

Questions from Ohio

While KDHE officials are confident that their purchases are prudent, others elsewhere have eased off the accelerator.

In Ohio, for example, state legislators have been wary of following through with plans to spend more than $6 million to buy Intoxilyzer 8000s, citing concerns that include doubts about the machine’s accuracy and reliability. Officials also cited worries about lawsuits in other states, challenging the machine’s results.

Maggie Thompson, a KDHE spokeswoman, said that her department had yet to hear any concerns about the Intoxilyzer 8000, and that all such devices have met quality standards before being delivered to individual agencies. KDHE is responsible for certifying the agencies, instruments and officers who test drivers suspected of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.

KDHE started buying the devices in July 2007, seeking both to update aging equipment in many departments and to expand such testing capabilities to others that had not been able to participate in the past.

The Intoxilyzer 8000 became the standard in Kansas, Thompson said, after being chosen after consultation with experts and law-enforcement officers.

“The technology was a step up from what was used in the past, the instrument was a lot more mobile and it was determined to be the best fit for Kansas,” Thompson said.

Sharing resources

The Intoxilyzer 8000 owned by Lawrence police, for example, is able to be shared by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, and the Kansas University, Eudora and De Soto police departments, Thompson said. Others in the area with the machines are the Baldwin City, Leavenworth and Lansing police departments, plus the Leavenworth County Sheriff’s Department.

Branson, the district attorney, said that the new machine would continue to help prosecutors compile strong cases against drunken drivers. Reliable testing results are key to any case.

“It’s important for those machines to be accurate, for our purposes and for the jury to be able to put their trust in those machines,” he said.

Remember, drunken drivers don’t like to get caught, he said. Neither do speeders, and violators will do anything they can to find a way to avoid punishment.

“We’ve seen it with radar guns,” Branson said. “When they moved from radar guns to lasers, there was a huge influx of challenges to the accuracy and reliability of laser guns. And that’s all died down now. It’s been upheld that they’re accurate and they do what they’re supposed to do.

“And this machine will go through the same process. And if, for some reason, it’s found that it’s not, then we need to discover that, too.”