Must of had the taste smacked out of their mouths before they were arrested. Victorian police faked more than a quarter of a million roadside breath tests in an apparent attempt to fool productivity checks. In a five year span, officers were fabricating the tests by placing a finger over the straw entry hole or blowing into the straw themselves. The investigation, which analysed over five years of data, 1,500 preliminary breath test devices and more than 17.7 million tests, disappointingly found 258,463 PBTs or 1.5% of all tests had been falsified. Normally, there should be some space of time between each test to take into account an officer on the road talking to a driver and breathalyzing them, before moving on to the next car, but the faked tests were occurring one after the other. Victoria Police issued a statement shortly before 8.30pm on Wednesday declaring they had “let the community down”. Usually I would interject some shade here, but I will just let that stand. The Victoria Police are in the process of appointing an external investigator to determine “the root causes of the behavior”, “underlying cultural and behavioral issues” and “supervision and management practices that resulted in the behavior continuing to go unchecked”. I’m not seeing any mention of administrative penalties for those who were caught doing it .. but whateva. “We are considering the feasibility of regular audits, the ability for the PBT to include the detail of the operator and quality assurance in relation to the issuing and distribution of straws.” But because the devices aren’t assigned to individual officers, it may be impossible to find out which police officers were falsifying the tests… ok there it is. But don’t those straws have some type of number on them and have to be recorded as evidence by the uhumm… police officer. Do tell. Up to 4 million alcohol tests are conducted on drivers every year, according to a previous Victoria police statement. Victoria is located in Australia.
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