Lansdale Lawyer Marc Steinberg says he took part in a recent webinar on the law and science of a ruling by Dauphin County Judge Lawrence Clark that led state police to stop using breath tests for alcohol in DUI cases.

He says he learned that they are not accurate for people at the high end of three intoxication tiers.

“Anybody that is in that third tier or category of .16 or higher, the machine probably is not accurate.  They can’t calibrate it because they haven’t set up to do that, so that’s a really simple explanation of the science.  That’s why Judge Clark threw it out.  He quashed the charge on that ground.”

He says anyone thinking about getting off the hook with a similar argument should know that getting expert witnesses to testify in court is very expensive.

“It could cost you a bundle of bucks to prove that you are correct and that the machine didn’t operate properly.”

Steinberg says no one should think they can get away with drunk driving based on the Dauphin County case, and in Montgomery and Bucks Counties most of the DUI testing is done by blood, not by breath.

He appeared Wednesday on the WNPV talk program Legally Speaking.