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Preliminary Alcohol Screening in Brea

Summary: This page covers Procedures for PAS Breath Test, What to Do When Asked for a PAS Test, Defenses for a PAS Test.

A preliminary alcohol screening in Brea (PAS) is a test requested at a DUI stop by a law enforcement officer of a person suspected to be driving while intoxicated with alcohol. The PAS test is used to measure a person’s blood alcohol concentration and therefore determine whether an arrest should be made. The test is usually a breath test. When you consume alcohol, it is usually absorbed and then passed into your body to be carried to your organs. However, there are remnants of that alcohol that get into your lungs. The Preliminary Alcohol Screening test is then used to test that amount of alcohol for how intoxicated you are. It does not directly give you a measure of your BAC, but instead, gets converted into it once the PAS test has been taken.

Procedures for PAS Breath Test

In the city of Brea, if a law enforcement officer suspects that you are driving under the influence of alcohol, they will start a DUI investigation. As part of the investigation, you may be asked to take the PAS test.

This PAS test is optional unless:

  • You are under the age of 21 or
  • You are on probation for a previous DUI offense.

By law, the law enforcement officer is therefore meant to let you know that the PAS test is optional if you are over 21 years old or don’t have a prior DUI offense.

What to Do When Asked for a PAS Test

Since the results of the preliminary alcohol screening in Brea can get you arrested, it is generally advised that you decline taking any PAS tests. Be advised, failure to give samples of your breath or blood will result in an immediate license suspension of 1 year. If you feel that the situation that you are in is about to escalate into a DUI arrest, it is also advisable for you to immediately call a DUI attorney to help you navigate the legal process that you may face.

Defenses for a PAS Test

Some possible defenses for a PAS Test include that it is fundamentally unreliable, as opposed to a chemical test. Maybe your officer was incompetent, or the PAS breath device was not in proper working order at the time that you were instructed to use it. There are also a variety of other defenses that can be used to defend a high BAC level. For example, some will say that they were not pulled over for the right fair reasons. Just because they were driving slightly recklessly does not mean that the operator of the vehicle was intoxicated. Because officers will also take behavioral cues as indicators that you may be eligible to be charged as guilty for a DUI, people will also challenge those physical symptoms. They may say that although the officer may have taken your behavior as that of a drunk or high person, you were just suffering from a sickness and those are symptoms of that.

Having an experienced Orange County DUI attorney on your side can help you avoid charges in the first place or to at least mitigate the consequences if you are charged and convicted of a DUI. Call us today to get your legal defense started.

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