On September 10, 1897, a 25-year-old London taxi driver named
George Smith became the first person ever arrested for drunk
driving after slamming his cab into a building. Smith later
pleaded guilty and was fined 25 shillings.

In the United States, the first laws against operating a motor
vehicle while under the influence of alcohol went into effect in
New York in 1910. In 1936, Dr. Rolla Harger, a professor of
biochemistry and toxicology, patented the Drunkometer, a
balloon-like device into which people would breathe to
determine whether they were inebriated.

In 1953, Robert Borkenstein, a former Indiana state police captain
and university professor who had collaborated with Harger on
the Drunkometer, invented the Breathalyzer.

Robert Borkenstein’s Breathalyzer.