By now you're likely familiar with the story of State Rep. Laura Bradford (R-Grand Junction), who faced a deluge of criticism after a Denver Police Officer pulled her over for erratic driving and smelled alcohol on her breath, but didn't administer a breathalyzer or give Bradford a DUI. The officer allowed her to ride home in a taxi under a little-known clause in the Colorado Constitution that extends legislative immunity to lawmakers doing business at the capitol.
"I know I would have passed the breathalyzer," Bradford told 9News in an interview Wednesday. "Which is why I kept asking the officers to take me in."
According to reports, Bradford drove several blocks before pulling over for police, and nearly hit another vehicle as she did so. She had just left Prohibition, a bar at the intersection of Colfax and Pennsylvania, where she told 7News she had "three glasses of wine in three-and-a-half hours."
Would she have passed a breathalyzer test? The time has long-since passed for administering one, but using a handy app provided free by the Colorado Department of Transportation, we can hack a rough approximation.
CDOT's blood alcohol concentration calculator, 'R-U-Buzzed,' takes into account weight, gender, alcohol consumed, and time. Glasses of wine are assumed to be 5 oz. pours.
Plugging in Bradford's stats (we're assuming she weighs around 115 lbs.), R-U-Buzzed estimates the Rep. had a BAC of 0.077 -- 0.003 away from a DUI, and well above the 0.05 threshold for a potential DWAI. A more nuanced online DUI calculator points out that if the pours were 6 oz. instead of 5 (and the wine 13% alcohol), Bradford's BAC could have been as high as 0.1.
Is any of this conclusive? No. These apps provide rough estimates that vary depending on how much the Rep. had eaten at dinner, the size of glasses, and the wine's alcohol content. From a purely speculative standpoint, though, Bradford's assertions of breezing through potential roadside maneuvers may be a bit overconfident.