There Is No Good Way To Photograph Someone Taking A Breathalyzer Test

Have you looked at photos of people taking a breathalyzer test online? No, of course you haven’t. Given how precious every minute of existence is, that would be a waste of an hour. Unless it’s your job to photograph people taking a breathalyzer test, then I suppose it’s ok.

It’s not my job, technically, to do that. This is why I have to write this post, because I’ve spent way more time than I want to admit looking at photos of people taking breathalyzer tests, and it’s not great. Why have I done this? Well … I have this theory that our collective memory of cars has a massive gap around 2004-2007 due to the transition from physical press releases to purely digital ones. Because of this automotive lacuna, people forget many mid-aughts concept cars and production vehicles.

There’s a car news press release repository that has images going back to 2004, which means that it has a lot of photos from this era that just slightly predates the beginning of the automotive blog era, and I go back there when I have a minute to see if there’s something the Internet doesn’t remember.

And it was there that I saw this:

That’s a strange photo, right? He’s kind of holding the breathalyzer (this one for Volvo Trucks) like a hookah. It feels unnatural. The model (?) in this case also looks surprised and, I don’t know how I know this, but they made him change ties. His original tie was almost certainly a keyboard. It’s just a mega bummer of a photo.

Conveniently, near this photo there was a similar breathalyzer image from Ford:

The problem with this image is the guy looks too cool taking the breathalyzer. Admittedly, the press release predates the popular adoption of vaping, so it maybe wouldn’t look as cool in the context of the early 2000s. As Heraclitus said, you can’t view the same press release photo in the same spot twice. Still, it looks like he’s taking a fat hit off that device.

Here’s another one. He’s had a long day at work. The boss is yelling at him. Nothing can calm him down like a sweet, sweet drag on that Volvo-branded alcohol meter.

I don’t think this is just the era, as the company Alco Sense also provided an image of breathalyzers past that also look less than great.

Oh man, the bobbies do not look happy here, and that guy doesn’t look like he’s taking a test. He looks like he’s huffing something, which seems like the opposite of what you want. What’s the car though? Is that an MG? Looks pretty cool.

AlcoSense did provide a newer image, and it looks slightly more normal:

I think it helps to not be able to see the face of the person in one of these photos.

Obviously, limiting myself to press photos in a specific British news database isn’t going to yield a representative display, so for the rest I went to our stock photo source.

Honestly, not so bad. The odd stop sign he has to try and flag her down seems like a long extension of the machine, which makes it a little awkward. Let’s try another one.

Off. This is bleak. Maybe bleak is accurate? Drunk driving is a serious issue, and credit to this person (or anyone) who is taking it seriously enough to use one of these devices before they drive. He looks beaten down by life in a way that implies maybe this was not his choice.

I guess this one is pretty norm … yikes! Did she hit a guy? Oh no. That gentleman appears to be bleeding from his arm in the background. I don’t like that. Also, it’s not quite uncanny valley, but there are certain stock photos you just know were shot in a former Eastern Bloc country. First guess? This was shot in Poland.

By the way, while Ford and Volvo were out showing breathalyzer photos, in that same rough time period Toyota put out this image:

If you want to make yourself laugh, say the phrase “Wine merchants enjoy the taste of Prius” out loud. It doesn’t sound right. It sounds very wrong. It tracks, though, given that this is the same company that clearly put a wine bottle holder in its cars.

I’m happy to be wrong about this. If you’re able to find a normal photo of someone taking or using a breathalyzer, drop a link below. I’m also happy to be right about it, which means you can put links to those images below as well.

Top graphic images: Volvo Trucks, Ford via Newspress