Jason Knott, owner of Breath Advisor LLC, hopes Utah drinkers won’t take their chances blowing into the unforgiving breathalyzer of law enforcement when they can pay $2 at a kiosk at their favorite bar to test their own blood-alcohol level before deciding between driving home or calling a cab.---

Knott’s business has just launched, and after three years development, Knott is preparing to place 10 breathalyzer kiosks in various bars across the Salt Lake Valley by as early as November. His company employs Lifeloc Technology-brand breathalyzers that are FDA approved and often used by law enforcement across the country.

The kiosks provide a touch-screen interface that allows patrons to test their own blood-alcohol limit to the thousandth decimal point. The information is not stored on the kiosks to ensure privacy, and even allows patrons the ability to contact a taxi directly from the kiosk. Knott would like to create an incentive for the kiosks that might charge a patron $2 to test their blood-alcohol level and then receive $2 off cab fare if they exceed the legal blood-alcohol limit.

Knott is not ashamed in admitting that the idea for launching his BreathAdvisor business idea came from a close call he had with law enforcement three years ago after a night of drinking at a Salt Lake City bar. After a friend of Knott's took a cab he had called for both of them and left him at the bar, Knott took a chance and decided to drive home.

“At that point, I felt like I could drive. I had had a vodka Redbull, a shot of tequila and I had shared a pitcher throughout the night. I knew I wasn’t fully sober but I thought I was under the limit,” Knott says. When he got pulled over outside the bar, however, Knott would learn otherwise. While he passed all the field sobriety tests, he blew a .081-- just past Utah’s .08 limit. His second try put him at .089. While Knott began to contemplate going to jail and possibly losing his job, the officer came back and took pity on Knott, had him park his car at a nearby gas station and waited while he called himself a cab.

“If I knew I was even close to the limit, I wouldn’t have driven home,” Knott says of the realization he had that night, that patrons could save themselves hassle, DUIs and possibly their lives if they understood better how their bodies process the alcohol they drink in an evening.

Knott says using the kiosk throughout a night of drinking has been enlightening in showing how intoxicated a person can be, compared to how intoxicated they feel they are.

“When you start drinking you may be at .04, and when you’ve been drinking for several hours you may hit .2 or.15. But then you drop down to .1 and you feel pretty sober,” Knott says. “That’s where a lot of people get caught up in thinking they can drive.” Knott says currently Lumpy's South in Sandy is confirmed for the first kiosk, but he hasn’t yet finalized locations for other kiosks in Utah, and is offering the kiosks initially as a no-cost service to bar owners interested in having the booths installed in their establishments.For more info, visit BreathAdvisor.com.