In New Zealand a doctor was charged with drink driving after failing a breath test, he claimed that it was his alcohol based hand wash that pushed his blood alcohol over the limit.
I was wondering if a alcohol based hand wash could be absorbed by the skin so much to fail a breath test.

For more on the story visit http://www.nzherald.co.nz/driving-offences/news/article...79&objectid=10545522

Don't know the answer to your question. . .

But, interesting side-bar:
Is it true if you put a penny in your mouth, when you have been drinking, the breathalizer test will not be correct?

Emil5, do not derail a thread with a different topic, especially one that has already been posted about and tested on the show.

NZmyths, while alcohol can be absorbed through the skin it would take much more than a hand wash to change blood alcohol levels a significant amount.

I think that the MythBusters did a episode on this and it didn't change the results.
see lightning strikes/Tongue piercings http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/episode/episode-tab-06.html

In the myth the doctor says he had already had up to 2 glasses of wine, would it still have to be a large amount of hand wash to be able to increase his blood level by 193 micro grams of alcohol per litre of breath

It also depends on the type of alcohol in the hand wash, but chances are he was just too drunk to drive. The alcohol will still have the same effect anyways regardless of how it got into his blood.

The doctor was lying. Plain and simple.

quote:

Originally posted by amarko:
The doctor was lying. Plain and simple.

No doubt, other than for a holiday check stop police already know you are drunk when they pull you over.

If enough alcohol had somehow been absorbed through the skin to fail a breath test, then the doctor would have actually been intoxicated anyway.

*How* you got drunk isn’t important. The fact that you’re driving drunk is all that matters.

I just pulled a link out of an earlier discussion: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1803104 .