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The Roadside Breath Test and the Station Test Differ
Michigan asks a driver stopped on suspicion of operating while intoxicated to blow into a device twice, at two different points, under two different statutes. Refusing the first carries a civil infraction. Refusing the second costs a year of driving. Most people treat them as one decision, and the two are not close.
The roadside device is the preliminary chemical breath analysis, governed by MCL 257.625a. A peace officer with reasonable cause to believe a driver’s ability may have been affected by alcohol, a controlled substance, or another intoxicating substance may request it at the scene, and a driver who refuses on a lawful request is responsible for a civil infraction.
What the Roadside Test Is Actually For
The preliminary test is an investigative tool rather than the evidence a prosecution is built on. An officer may arrest a person based in whole or in part on its results, which is its practical function at the roadside.
Its results are admissible, but for defined purposes. The statute makes them admissible in a criminal prosecution for a crime enumerated in MCL 257.625c(1) and in an administrative hearing, for the specific purposes the section lists rather than as general proof of intoxication.
Submitting to it changes nothing about what comes later. A person who takes the preliminary test remains subject to the requirements of MCL 257.625c, 625d, 625e, and 625f for the chemical tests those sections describe. Blowing at the roadside is not compliance with the evidentiary test, and declining at the roadside is not a refusal of it.
Refusing Each One Costs Something Different
A civil infraction for refusing the preliminary test is a fine and a record entry. It is not a criminal charge, it does not carry jail, and it does not by itself suspend a license.
Refusing the evidentiary chemical test after arrest is a different matter entirely. Under MCL 257.625f, a driver who refuses and does not request a hearing within 14 days of the notice loses the license for one year, and for two years on a second or subsequent refusal within seven years. Six points are entered under MCL 257.320a(8), though no additional points attach for the same offense where a conviction arises from the same incident.
That sanction is independent of the criminal case. It applies whether or not the charge results in a conviction, which is what makes the 14-day window worth calendaring the day it is handed over. Our page on Michigan OWI defense covers how the two tracks are handled together.
One Carve-Out for Commercial Drivers
The civil infraction treatment of a preliminary test refusal carries an exception. For an operator of a commercial motor vehicle, the statute treats refusal of a preliminary chemical breath analysis as a misdemeanor rather than a civil infraction, and it provides for an operator to be ordered out of service.
A commercial license therefore changes the roadside calculation rather than only the consequences of a conviction. A driver holding one is deciding about a criminal charge at the roadside, not an infraction.
The distinction matters in a region where a large share of drivers hold a commercial endorsement they rarely think about while driving a personal vehicle. Whether the endorsement is in play depends on what is being driven and what the statute defines as a commercial motor vehicle.
The Right to a Test of Your Own
A provision in the same section is worth knowing before the station test is administered rather than after. A person who takes a chemical test at a peace officer’s request must be given a reasonable opportunity to have a person of their own choosing administer one of the chemical tests described in the section, within a reasonable time after detention.
The results of that independent test are admissible and must be considered along with other admissible evidence. It is not a substitute for the officer’s test and it does not cancel it, but it produces a second data point taken by someone the driver selected.
The chemical test itself must be administered at the request of a peace officer having reasonable grounds to believe the person committed a crime described in MCL 257.625c(1). Whether those grounds existed is a separate question from what the machine reported, and both are open to examination.
Why the Sequence Is Worth Reconstructing
A defense that turns on the tests begins with the order of events, not with the numbers. When the officer formed reasonable cause, what was requested, what was said, when the arrest occurred, when the evidentiary test was offered, and when the notice of refusal was served are separate facts with separate consequences.
Those facts are recorded in places that are easier to obtain early. The report, the in-car and body camera footage, the device logs, and the notice itself all exist from the first day, and reconstructing the sequence from memory months later is far harder than requesting it while it is current.
People routinely tell us they refused, when what they declined was the roadside device and they later provided a sample at the station. The two answers lead to different cases, and sorting out which happened is often the first useful thing to do. Call our office at (800) 525-6386 and we will walk through it with you.
After a Stop That Involved a Breath Test
The licensing consequence moves faster than the criminal case and is decided somewhere else, which is why it is the part most often lost by default. Fourteen days is the number to act on. Our Michigan criminal defense work at Neumann Law Group covers district courts throughout Northern Michigan and statewide. Call us at (800) 525-6386 or contact our office to arrange a consultation.