"It's to recertify their skills on the machine, which is used for measuring the blood alcohol level in people arrested for drunk driving," fish says.
"The class instructions are carefully worded to avoid ambiguity, and each of the students follows the instructions to the letter."
That's especially important when it comes to the "breath test refusal" section. In a real situation, if an arrestee refuses the test, the driver's license is automatically suspended.
Thus the instructions: Enter your own name as the arrestee. Enter your own name as the arresting officer. Enter all zeros in the field for the ticket number. Do not enter any criminal charges.
"This way, should the information somehow accidentally be forwarded to the Department of Motor Vehicles -- which it won't, because this is all computerized now -- the data entry clerk will realize something is wrong and flag the entry," says fish.
At least that's the plan. But several days after the class, 20-some police officers receive letters informing them that their driver's licenses have been suspended for refusing a breath test.
Turns out the classroom-exercise tickets have somehow made their way to the DMV -- and a data entry clerk has diligently entered all of the information. "And for several days," fish groans, "until the error was corrected, half of this town's police force had no driver's licenses."