In petitions for postconviction relief, defendants asserted that requiring submission to a breath test could not be justified either as a search incident to arrest or as a consensual search. The U.S. District Court denied relief, reasoning that the law is valid both as a search incident to arrest and as a consent search. The Ninth Circuit Court affirmed the district court's holding that the law is valid as a search incident to arrest, but it neither relied on nor discussed the district court's consent-search rationale. In disagreeing with the court's ruling, this article relies on Schmerber v. California to show that, to be valid, chemical test searches must be justified by 'exigent circumstances.' The article also argues that because of the coercive and involuntary nature of the tests, the holding on consent searches was wrongly decided. 150 footnotes.