Officials: DWI devices set at wrong level

More than 200 ignition interlock devices were programmed incorrectly across New York State and could have failed to prevent convicted drunken drivers from repeating their crimes, state and county officials said.

The device that measures blood-alcohol content was set at a level 10 times higher than it should have been, officials said.

Seven of these incorrect devices were operating in Nassau County for at least two months, officials said, but none of the seven resulted in new cases of drunken driving.

"Someone could have been drinking . . . and the vehicle would still start and not generate a violation report," said John D. Fowle, acting director of Nassau County Probation. "It was troubling, to say the least."

The devices are manufactured by Smart Start Inc.

In Suffolk County, none of the 40 Smart Start units was incorrectly programmed, said Dan Aug, a county spokesman.

A Smart Start employee was responsible for setting the devices with a decimal in the incorrect place, said the company and John Caher, a spokesman for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services.

"The cause of the problem, we believe, was human error in entering the set point," Caher said. "We are unaware of any problems with the units themselves."

A total of 222 Smart Start Inc. devices installed across New York between Nov. 17 and Dec. 22 had blood-alcohol-levels settings of .25 percent to trigger ignition interlocking devices, said Don Nebhan, vice president for marketing and operations with Smart Start.

The units should have been set at .025, Nebhan said.

"We had safeguards in place, you know, to triple check," Nebhan said. "We've since revised those to add checks."

Among the changes, Nebhan said, is that the company president now will check the programming and sign off on the devices.

Ignition interlock devices are installed in cars of drivers on probation for a drunken driving conviction. The devices analyze breath samples for blood-alcohol content before allowing a car to start. They are typically installed after a court order.

The county found out about the problem with the devices on Monday. The state said that it discovered in late December that some of the devices were incorrectly programmed.

Because Smart Start didn't notify Nassau immediately after discovering the calibration error, Fowle on Tuesday demanded that Smart Start be suspended as a provider of ignition interlock devices.

The state will not suspend Smart Start as a vendor, Caher said Wednesday.

A drunken-driving arrest in Nassau earlier this month sparked county probation officials to begin investigating the devices, Fowle said.

With Alfonso A. Castillo