Breathalyzer checks in the City: how much is the fine for testing positive

The law that provides for the withdrawal of the driver’s license to drivers who give a positive result during a breathalyzer control will begin to take effect this Tuesday in the City of Buenos Aires in an attempt to avoid road incidents due to alcohol consumption, which are linked to one in five fatal accidents that are registered in the district. The rule will be in charge of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Transport after the sanction of the law in the local Legislature at the end of 2021 to replace the current regulation, which allows offenders to regularize their situation in a short period of time and return to circulate. Drivers who pass the maximum tolerated blood alcohol limit of 0.5 gr/l will be disqualified from driving a vehicle for a period that will extend for a minimum of two months and a maximum that may reach two years.
The penalty will depend on the dosage that the road control throws, according to sources of the Buenos Aires Government, who detailed that between 0.5 gr / l and 1 gr / l the sanction will be the disqualification of the license of two to four months and the payment of a fine that will go from $ 7,950 to $ 53,000.Then, if the result gives from 1 gr / l onwards the disqualification of the license will be applied for a period of four months to two years and an infraction of $ 15,900 to 106,000, as well as one to 10 days of arrest. According to official data, in 2021 338,311 breathalyzer controls were carried out, of which 1.7% tested positive with an average dosage of 0.87 g/l of alcohol. Breathalyzer positives are led by men by 84.3%, while women account for 15.7%. The Buenos Aires government also clarified that even if the driver has his license registered in a district other than the city of Buenos Aires, the disqualification will occur the same. In April 2021, the National Road Safety Agency (ANSV), an agency of the Ministry of Transport, presented to the National Congress a draft Zero Alcohol Law at the wheel for the entire national territory, in a text prepared together with the Ministry of Health, the Secretariat of Integral Policies on Drugs of the Argentine Nation (Ssdronar) and associations of relatives of traffic victims, In recent months, institutions such as the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and 53 entities nucleated in the Forum of Scientific Societies, Civil Society Organizations and Universities demonstrated in favor of a zero alcohol law at the wheel in our country.

Original source in Spanish