The most important factor in successful IRP reviews is information.
Without access to some very specific knowledge and information, you won’t succeed in fighting the IRP.
Who has the information?
Lawyers who specialize in IRPs have this information (or know someone who has it). Every police officer who issues an IRP has this information. RoadSafetyBC adjudicators have this information. And of course, we here at Point 08 Forensic Alcohol Consultants have this information.
There is lots to know about IRP reviews
A police officer may take only a few minutes to stop a driver and issue an IRP, but there are many laws (both provincial and federal) governing his actions that he must obey. He must follow many policies and procedures while operating the ASD, and he must properly complete the documents that capture evidence justifying the IRP. It’s a lot of information, and even small errors or omissions on his part can mean a successful IRP review for you.
Police get a lot of training to operate an ASD and issue IRPs. They learn how and when to make an ASD demand, how to operate an ASD, how and when to advise a driver of second ASD test, and how to complete and serve the IRP documents. There is a lot for police to know. As a retired course instructor, we know all about the IRP training and we use that knowledge to discover errors in the IRP documents. Then we describe the errors in our report that you (or a lawyer) can then submit to the IRP review.
Information doesn’t have to be expensive!
If you can get access to this specialized IRP information then great, you have a good chance of success. If you have access to this information at no cost that is even better! Perhaps you know a police officer or an adjudicator. Maybe a lawyer is a family friend. But if you are like most drivers, you will have to pay something to someone to benefit from their specialized information. But this cost doesn’t have to be expensive. For example, our fees are much lower than a lawyer charges to represent an IRP client. So low that many lawyers hire us to increase their success rates.
If you need information about IRPs and don’t want to spend a lot of money for it, give us a call. We can review the IRP disclosure documents and give you our preliminary assessment. You don’t pay until you agree to have us prepare a written report that you can use to fight your IRP review.
I need some help with my IRP. I believe that the officers who made me blow almost twenty times did not take into consideration that there was alcohol trapped in and on my denture and that is what made me finely blow a fail.
When I had my denture out the machine would not work…and the officers kept saying I was refusing to blow.
I finally did manage to make the machine work with my denture in, but it has recently been repaired and there are lots of places that food and alcohol do get trapped in it.
I have to rinse it every time I eat.
Also the paper work was filled out with the 3 days warn and the 90 days fail circled.
When she showed it to me I asked about it and she said “oh that’s weird” and filled out a new one “so there’s no confusion.”
But you can still see the circles and the double writing on the one I have.
You can barely read my name, her name and the addresses on it.
I would greatly appreciate any advice on this problem.
Dentures can trap alcohol (especially poorly fitting dentures) and cause a “mouth alcohol effect”. The trapped alcohol can be released long after someone has consumed alcohol and contaminate the mouth. Then, if they provide a breath sample into an ASD it becomes contaminated with alcohol from the mouth giving a falsely high reading.
Errors in completing the documents can be a reason why irps are revoked. But the error you describe may not be a fatal error. There are several documents police complete for an irp and the same information is often repeated on different documents. The type of irp issued is repeated in several documents so an error in one part of the disclosure documents will not be serious enough to warrant a revocation. I had a recent case where the police identified the driver with a completely different name (cut and paste error!) in 2 places, but the name was correct in several other places so it wasn’t a fatal error but it did show the officer was careless and this is often very helpful when disputing an irp.
Thanks for your questions and I hope you find this helpful.
I have severe, stage 3 COPD and was stopped by an officer. He got me to blow 18 times and l did, but he ,couldn’t get a reading, When he stopped me,. He asked me if l had any drinks, but he didn’t ask me when l had my first or last one.
. I had had 3 beer that day…over a 12 hr period, so l felt confident that l was totally ok. It had been 4 hrs since my last alcoholic drink.. He didn’t give me an opportunity to explain that to him. I told him l had severe COPD. I have Pulmonary function tests showing my Lung function is between 42 and 51 % of a normal lung.
After my 18th attempt he said you admitted to drinking alcohol,so lm charging you with refusing to blow. I was afraid to disagree with him. Will l have a chance of revocation if l apply for a review?
Thankyou for your reply.
Hello Worried,
Based on my experience you will have an excellent chance for a revocation if you are able to persuade the IRP adjudicator you have stage 3 COPD. The officer will be alleging in the IRP disclosure documents that you purposefully did not blow hard enough into the ASD and will be supporting that opinion with descriptions and observations of your 18 attempts to blow into the ASD. You need to provide evidence you could not blow long enough because you have severe COPD. It is very helpful you told the police officer you had severe COPD and hopefully he made a note of that in the IRP disclosure documents. It would also help if you can get a letter from your doctor explaining that you have been diagnosed with severe COPD and to submit it to the IRP review. There are several scientific papers that show people with impaired lung function cannot provide breath samples into ASDs and it can be very helpful to refer these to the IRP adjudicator.
The adjudicator will look very carefully at any symptoms of intoxication (or poor driving) that the officer may have recorded in the IRP disclosure so if you know the symptoms were not caused by alcohol you should indicate this. It can be helpful to provide a calculation of your BAC (based on your consumption of three beers and your body weight) and show that it was not in the WARN or FAIL range. Without a body weight I can’t give you an exact calculation of your blood alcohol concentration, but I can tell you that consuming 3 regulars beers over 12 hours would not produce a FAIL or WARN reading.
Thanks for your questions and I hope this helps. Good luck!