[790]*790TANZER, J.
In this prosecution for driving under the influence of intoxicants, ORS 487.540, the district court suppressed evidence of a breathalyzer test of the defendant’s blood alcohol content and the state appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the basis of our decision in State v. Scharf, 288 Or 451, 605 P2d 690, rehearing den 288 Or 621 (1980).
In State v. Scharf this court divided on whether a denial of access to counsel violated Oregon’s implied consent statute and required exclusion. A majority held that ORS 487.805 as a matter of legislative policy, assured to an arrested person a “voluntary and informed choice,” 288 Or at 458, whether to take a breathalyzer test which was violated by an unauthorized police refusal to allow defendant to call a lawyer for advice as to whether to consent. Three judges dissented on the ground that the legislative intent of ORS 487.805 was not to assure a voluntary and informed choice. We allowed review to re-examine our statutory determination.
FACTS
The defendant was arrested for driving under the influence of intoxicants at about 9 p.m. The validity of the arrest is not challenged. He was advised of his rights to silence and counsel. After the officer drove defendant home to leave his automobile keys and other property with his wife, defendant was taken to the county jail. At about 11 p.m. he was requested to take a breathalyzer test. The defendant then requested the opportunity to talk with a lawyer before the breath test was administered. A telephone was available in the jail at the time of the request. The officer administering the breathalyzer quoted from the standard Oregon State Police informational form and advised defendant that “regardless of any information you may have received before this request, the fact is you are not entitled to have an attorney present at this breath test and any request for delay on this ground will constitute a refusal.”1 Defendant then submitted to the breathlyzer test and the results indicated a blood alcohol [791]*791content of. 10 percent. The district court suppressed that evidence on the basis that defendant was entitled to a telephone call to consult with a lawyer before taking the test.
I. THE IMPLIED CONSENT STATUTE
A threshold difficulty in discerning the legislative intent embodied in ORS 487.8052 is not simply that the concept of implied consent is a “statutory fiction,” Scharf, 288 Or at 457, but that the fiction appears to be theoretically contradictory. An enigma appears to be at the heart of the law: If, under subsection (1), a driver has impliedly consented to a breath test which, under subsection (2), he may nevertheless refuse, then “the licensee-driver has not impliedly consented to anything.” Lerblance, Implied Consent to Intoxication Tests: A Flawed Concept, 53 St Johns L Rev 39, 49 n. 36 (1978).
[792]*792The contradiction disappears, however, when it is realized that the words “consent” and “refusal” are not used as antonyms, because they are not used in the same sense. “Consent” describes a legal act; “refusal” describes a physical reality. By implying consent, the statute removes the right of a licensed driver to lawfully refuse, but it cannot remove his or her physical power to refuse. As another court put it:
“The obvious reason for acquiescence in the refusal of such a test by a person who as a matter of law is ‘deemed to have given his consent’ is to avoid the violence which would often attend forcible tests upon recalcitrant inebriates. * * *
[793]*793“* * * It is firmly established that a drunken driver has no right to resist or refuse such a test [citations]. It is simply because such a person has the physical power to make the test impractical, and dangerous to himself and those charged with administering it, that it is excused upon an indication of his unwillingness. * * *” Bush v. Bright, 264 Cal App 2d 788, 790, 792, 71 Cal Rptr 123 at 124, 125 (1968) (original emphasis).
Thus refusal as contemplated by the statute is something other than withholding of consent because consent is legally implied. It is a refusal to comply with-the consent which has already been given as a condition of a license to drive. The purpose of a warning of license suspension following a refusal is to overcome an unsanctioned refusal by threat instead of force. It is not to reinstate a right to choice, let alone a voluntary and informed choice, but rather to nonforcibly enforce the driver’s previous implied consent.
The history of the . implied consent law confirms the preceding description of the nature of consent and refusal as those terms are used in implied consent statutes. The law is designed to overcome the possibility of physical resistance, despite legal consent, without resort to physical compulsion. Tracing the history of the statute, we find that it is intertwined with constitutional caselaw, uniform legislation, and federal funding. The conclusion is clear that the concept of implied consent is rooted in a misconception of the law of due process which has become legislatively perpetuated even though the constitutional underpinnings have long since been superseded.
Implied consent statutes were initially a reaction to caselaw. The seminal case is Rochin v. California, 342 US 165, 72 S Ct 205, 96 L Ed 183 (1952). There, the police, armed only with information which was less than probable cause to believe that the defendant was selling narcotics, surreptitiously entered his home and forcibly entered his room without a warrant. Defendant, seated on his bed next to his reclining wife, seized two capsules from his bedstand and placed them in his mouth. Three officers struggled unsuccessfully to extract the capsules from his mouth. Defendant was handcuffed and taken to a hospital where, at police direction and against defendant’s will, a doctor [794]*794forced an emetic solution through a tube into defendant’s stomach, causing him to vomit. In the vomit were two capsules of morphine.
The court held that the course of conduct by which the police obtained the evidence offended “those canons of decency and fairness which express the notions of justice of English-speaking peoples” embodied in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, 342 US at 169, because
“ * * * This is conduct that shocks the conscience. Illegally breaking into the privacy of the petitioner, the struggle to open his mouth and remove what was there, the forcible extraction of his stomach’s contents — this course of proceeding by agents of government to obtain evidence is bound to offend even hardened sensibilities. They are methods too close to the rack and the screw to permit of constitutional differentiation.” 342 US at 172.
Although later cases made it clear that Rochin was based upon the totality of the police conduct, just as the opinion said, the decision was thought at the time to bar the forcible invasion of the body for seizure of evidence as violative of due process. That being so, there was concern that the Rochin theory invalidated state statutes authorizing the extraction from the body of blood, urine or other substances for testing of alcohol content. See Comment, Constitutional Law — Validity of New York Statute Setting out Motorists’ Implied Consent to Chemical Tests for Intoxication, 51 Mich L Rev 1195 (1953).
One year later, the New York legislature acted in response to the Rochin decision by enacting the prototype implied consent statute. See Note, Driving While Intoxicated and the Right to Counsel: The Case Against Implied Consent, 58 Tex L Rev 935,938 (1980). Unlike former statutes, the new statute did not authorize physical compulsion to overcome resistance to a demand for a blood sample, a practice thought to have been barred by Rochin. Rather, the statute authorized police to overcome refusal by the threat of an adverse consequence, i.e., license suspension. Nothing suggests a legislative intention to offer the driver a free choice or to create the statutory equivalent of a consent search; the objective was to create a means of [795]*795non-physical coercion in order to obtain chemical samples with which to convict drunk drivers. Implied consent statutes modeled on the New York statute say only that the test “shall be administered” on request of the officer. Only if there is a refusal to submit are further procedures required.
Prior to 1965, Oregon law authorized blood, breath, or urine tests only upon the actual consent of a person arrested for driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor.3 This was changed in 1965 when Oregon adopted the implied consent act essentially in its present form. Its proponent explained:
“The question of consent remains the crux of the problem today. Although we have a chemical test law to deal with the problem of the drinking driver, it is not fully utilized due to the difficulties in obtaining consent [i.e. submission]. Refusals to take a chemical test run as high as 70. in some jurisdictions. On an average, about 2/3 refuse to take a test.” Testimony of Warne Nunn, Chairman, Oregon Traffic Safety Commission, representing Governor Mark Hatfield, 1-28-65, House Judiciary Committee.
The proponent continued to explain that consent would continue to be required for blood tests. For breath testing, however, an arrested person need not consent because his consent was to be implied, but the test would not be administered if refused and if the refusal is maintained after advice of the consequences.4
[796]*796Meanwhile, the constitutional assumptions arising from Rochin, upon which the implied consent act was based, had begun to erode. In 1957 a divided United States Supreme Court decided in Breithaupt v. Abram, 352 US 432, 77 S Ct 408, 1 L Ed 2d 448 (1957), that a blood sample taken at the hospital from an unconscious driver was constitutionally obtained even though the body had been invaded without consent. In particular, it held, there was no “coercion” or “brutality” as in Rochin. The court held that properly drawn blood tests had become commonplace and the subjection of a person to such a test did not shock the conscience. The evidence of testing was therefore not subject to exclusion. Four justices dissented, however, on the ground that the Rochin principle was offended by any invasion of the body whether or not physical force was used. The result of Breithaupt v. Abram was that Rochin was adhered to, but the narrowness of the holding and its implications was clarified.
In the same year that the broad constitutional implications of the Rochin doctrine were rejected by the United States Supreme Court, an important legislative event tended to lock those very implications into statutory law. In 1957 the Uniform Chemical Test for Intoxication Act was promulgated. See Handbook of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and Proceedings of the Annual Conference 216, 220 (1957). In 1962 implied consent was adopted as part of the Uniform Vehicle Code, § 6-205.1 (1962).5 Thus legislation conceived to overcome a constitutional obstacle gained institutional momentum at the very time that the United States Supreme Court removed the obstacle.
Shortly after Oregon’s enactment of ORS 487.805 (then 483.634), the United States Supreme Court removed any lingering question that consent, whether implied or acutal, was necessary to overcome constitutional limitations upon mandatory blood testing. In Schmerber v. California, 384 US 757, 86 S Ct 1826, 16 L Ed 2d 908 (1966), the [797]*797court held that, under proper circumstances, the state could constitutionally compel a person to submit to extraction of blood for testing to determine alcohol content. The Court upheld the use in a prosecution for driving under the influence of liquor of test results from a blood sample taken by a physician at the direction of a policeman from a conscious person over his objection. The Court stated, as it had in Breithaupt v. Abram, that the extraction did not offend the “sense of justice” referred to in Rochin, that there was no compelled self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment because the evidence was not testimonial, and that the seizure was permissible under the Fourth Amendment because there was probable cause to believe evidence of crime was in defendant’s blood and that delay would likely destroy the evidence, and because the manner of extraction was reasonable. Again, four judges dissented. The Schmerber decision was consistent with preexisting Oregon law, see State v. Cram, supra, n 5, and neither court has withdrawn from that constitutional principle. After Schmerber, it has been observed:
“ * * * Paradoxically, as a result of Schmerber, states without ‘implied consent’ statutes can compel a motorist to undergo a chemical test, while in states with ‘implied consent’ statutes the motorist has the option to refuse the test.” Comment: Florida’s ‘Implied Consent’ Statutes: Chemical Tests for Intoxicated Drivers, 22 U Miami L Rev 698, 727 (1968).
In the same year as Schmerber, the legislative movement for implied consent gained another source of momentum. Congress adopted the Highway Safety Act of 1966, 23 USC 401-406. One year later, the Department of Transportation formulated standards under the Act, applicable to the states, including Highway Safety Standard No. 8, which required an implied consent enforcement scheme. See H.R. Doc. No. 138, 90th Cong., First Sess. 9,1967. All 50 states now have implied consent laws, almost half of them adopted since Schmerber. Although it has been suggested that post-Schmerber adoption of such laws reflects a legislative desire for greater protection of arrested drivers than is constitutionally required, see Hunvald & Zimring, Whatever Happened to Implied Consentí A Sounding, 33 Mo L Rev 323, 323-324 (1968), and Lerblance, supra at 47 n 22, no evidence or history is submitted to support that view.
[798]*798Rather, one commentator has concluded in view ot this federal legislative history that:
“ * * * [I]mplied consent is a much a result of historical snowballing as of a considered choice by legislatures, * * *.” 58 Tex L Rev at 959.
Thus it is, he stated, that
“ * * * Although implied consent developed as a means of facilitating the use of chemical evidence, the statutes currently constitute the primary barriers to the use of that evidence * * Ibid.
Despite the decision in Schmerber, implied consent has not been repealed in Oregon. To do so would threaten the receipt of funds under the Highway Safety Act. There have been two amendments, however, which are significant as to legislative intent regarding consent and refusal. In 1975, as an ancillary to enactment of a revised traffic code, the license suspension period under ORS 482.540(1) for refusal to take a breath test was increased from 90 days to 4 months, Oregon Laws 1975, ch 451, § 146. The reason was that with the “decriminalization” of the traffic code, “people were going to refuse to take the test” unless the penalty for refusal was made more severe. Testimony of Chief Judge Herbert M. Schwab, 6-12-74, Interim Committee on Judiciary. In 1979, another adverse consequence of refusal was provided. The legislature enacted ORS 487.805(4), which allows evidence in subsequent legal proceedings of refusal to take the breath test. Both legislative changes were intended to compel submission rather than to promote freedom of choice.6
The preceding history does not support the conclusion in Scharf that ORS 487.805 embodies “the legislative decision that the breath test is to be administered only upon the arrested person’s voluntary and informed choice.” 288 or at 461. Rather, it confirms our earlier conclusion in State v. Fogle, 254 Or 268, 459 P2d 873 (1969), that the option of refusal under the statute does not imply a requirement of “voluntary submission”:
[799]*799“* * * While the statute recognizes that a person may refuse to submit to the test, the legislature could hardly have contemplated that it was necessary that there be a completely knowing and understanding submission. If this were the case, the only people who could be tested would be those who were not sufficiently intoxicated to interfere with their mental processes.” 254 Or at 270.
Our description of legislative meaning in Fogle was consistent with the history of the statute. The very concept of implied consent in ORS 487.805(1) was intended to eliminate the right of choice and to recognize actual choice only in the sense of a forbearance of physical resistance. See Bush v. Bright, supra. Under ORS 487.805(2), the arrested driver must make the initial choice to submit or refuse without the benefit of any information from the police. If anything, this indicates a legislative intent to promote uninformed submission rather than informed choice. The police are obliged to give the arrested driver information only after he first “refuses the request of the police officer to submit to the chemical test” of his breath. Had the legislature been concerned “with assuring the arrested driver a voluntary and informed choice” as we stated in Scharf, 288 Or at 459, it surely would have required the police to advise the driver before, not after, the driver first chooses to submit or refuse. If the breath seizure were “the very stage that the legislature expressly required to be voluntary and informed” as we stated in Scharf, 288 Or at 460, the legislature would have required that the information be provided before, not after, drivers provide the evidence by submitting to the officer’s initial request.
Instead, ORS 487.805(2) provides that for drivers who comply with the officer’s initial request for a breath sample, the process is at an end even though the driver may never have been advised of anything. For drivers who refuse, the purpose of the statute is to provide an effective means short of physical force (in view of Bochin) to overcome the refusal. The nonphysical means consist of the statutory creation of a penalty (i.e., an extensive license suspension) and a warning from a police officer (as police officer, not as surrogate defense lawyer) that the driver’s license will be suspended if he or she continues to refuse. Thus the consent envisioned by the statute is to be implied [800]*800and if submission is not forthcoming, it is to be coerced by fear of adverse consequences. Defendant’s request to call a lawyer is not material to statutory compliance.
In this case, defendant’s consent had alredy been impliedly given in the sense that he accepted testing as a condition of his license to drive. His submission was obtained in the statutory manner. Therefore, the implied consent statutes were complied with and they give no basis for suppression of evidence of the results of the chemical test of the defendant’s breath.7
II. CONSTITUTIONAL CLAIMS
Defendant has also relied throughout on the Oregon and United States Constitutions as bases for suppression. Although his arguments in defense of the order of suppression have centered on Scharf, he has expressly continued to assert his constitutional rights to freedom from unreasonable seizures and to counsel. Having held that ORS 487.805 was not violated, we now address defendant’s constitutional assertions.
A. Seizure
We begin by examining the constitutional propriety of the seizure of defendant’s breath sample. The Oregon State Police are charged with enforcement of Oregon’s traffic laws, ORS 181.040, and they are therefore authorized to take such actions as reasonably tend to accomplish that statutory responsibility and which are not prohibited by law. Obviously, obtaining evidence of traffic offenses is action which has a reasonable tendency to accomplish traffic law enforcement. In constitutional terms, the taking of physical evidence, e.g., defendant’s breath, is a seizure and unreasonable seizures are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. We must therefore decide whether these constitutional limitations on the authority to seize were transgressed in this case.
[801]*801There was no warrant for the seizure. Therefore, if the seizure is constitutionally valid, it must come within an exception to the warrant requirement.
1. Consent
The warrant requirement may be excused if there is consent. By this, we mean actual consent. Defendant’s statutorily implied consent cannot excuse an otherwise unconstitutional seizure. If defendant’s submission may be regarded as a consent to seize, it was an informed consent in that defendant knew that he had the option of refusal, cf. State v. Flores, 280 Or 273, 570 P2d 965 (1977). The controlling principle is that effective consent must be voluntary. That is, the consenting person’s will may not be overborne. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 US 218, 225-226, 93 S Ct 2041, 36 L Ed 2d 854 (1973).8 Where a person’s consent to a seizure is solicited, and the person consents only after being warned that he will suffer a substantial penalty if he refuses, the resulting consent cannot be regarded as a free exercise of will. We therefore hold that defendant’s submission to the breath test was not a voluntary consent to seizure because it was coerced.
2. Probable Cause; Exigent Circumstances
The warrantless seizure was nevertheless not forbidden by the Fourth Amendment or Article I, section 9, because there was both probable cause to believe that defendant’s breath contained evidence of intoxicants and exigent circumstances making it likely that the evidence would dissipate if time were taken to obtain a warrant for its seizure. The validity of the arrest for driving under the influence of intoxicants is not challenged and blood alcohol content is a transitory condition. In such a case, neither constitution prohibits the police from compelling a person to submit to physical extraction of blood over the refusal of the person and the objection of his lawyer. Schmerber v. California and State v. Heintz, 286 Or 239, 594 P2d 385 [802]*802(1979); accord re fingernail scrapings, Cupp v. Murphy, 412 US 291, 93 S Ct 2000, 36 L ed 2d 900 (1973). The assistance of counsel is not material to the validity of the seizure because defendant has no right to refuse and “he has no greater right because counsel erroneously advised him that he could assert it.” Schmerber, 384 US at 765-66. That is a dominant constitutional principle of this case: statutory considerations aside, the police could have lawfully compelled defendant to provide a breath sample for testing regardless of whether defendant called a lawyer and regardless of whether defendant had refused to submit to the seizure. Therefore, we conclude that the search and seizure provisions of neither constitution were violated.
B. Right to Counsel
Defendant’s right to counsel is material because his request to call a lawyer was discouraged by advice that delay therefor would be deemed a refusal, resulting in a license suspension. In effect, the discouragement of defendant’s request was a denial of it.
Neither Article I, section 9, nor the Fourth Amendment forbid compulsion; they allow compulsion when warranted or otherwise reasonable. The right of counsel does not apply under the Fourth Amendment as it does under the Fifth Amendment because a reasonable search and seizure need not be voluntary. Rather, as we said above, seizure may be compelled regardless of the action of an attorney. Schmerber v. California, State v. Heintz, Cupp v. Murphy, all supra. No right of counsel is implied by the right of freedom from unreasonable seizures. Therefore, the discouragement of defendant’s call to an attorney has no effect on the validity of the seizure in this regard.
It is also arguable that counsel is required because the breathalyzer request is a critical stage of the prosecution. See State v. Fitzsimmions, 93 Wash 2d 436, 610 P2d 893 (1980). The right to counsel attaches to certain evidence-gathering processes which are deemed “critical stages” of the prosecution as an extension of a defendant’s right to representation by counsel in court. Any pre-trial adversarial contact of the state and a defendant at which some benefit of counsel would be lost if counsel is not present, [803]*803that is, at which the state’s case may be enhanced or the defense impaired due to the absence of counsel, may be considered a critical stage of the prosecution at which defendant has a right to the presence of counsel. Thus, under the Sixth Amendment, surreptitious questioning of an indicted defendant in the absence of counsel is deemed a denial of counsel at a critical stage of the prosecution. Massiah v. United States, 377 US 201, 84 S Ct 1199, 12 L Ed 2d 246 (1964). Similarly, a defendant is entitled to the presence of counsel at a post-indictment line-up because it is deemed a critical stage of the prosecution. United States v. Wade, 388 US 218, 87 S Ct 1926, 18 L Ed 2d 1149 (1967), Gilbert v. California, 388 US 263, 87 S Ct 1951, 18 L Ed 2d 1178 (1967). Evidence obtained at a critical stage at which the right to counsel has not been afforded or waived is subject to exclusion.
The breathalyzer test in this case cannot be characterized as a critical stage. Any evidence gathering, however early in the investigation or prosecution, may affect the ultimate adjudication and could therefore logically be regarded as a critical stage. A breathalyzer request and submission is such a process. Yet, no law requires the police to secure a lawyer for every person from whom evidence is sought at any time in the course of an investigation at the risk of having evidence suppressed if the person is ultimately charged. Not every evidence-gathering procedure is a critical stage. Obviously, the critical stage concept has a limit and that limit was set by the U. S. Supreme Court in Kirby v. Illinois, 406 US 682, 92 S Ct 1877, 32 L Ed 2d 411 (1972). The majority upheld evidence from a post-arrest, pre-indictment identification procedure. It held that an adversarial contact is a criticad stage in the prosecution only after the defendant is formally charged:
“The initiation of judicial criminal proceedings is far from a mere formalism. It is the starting point of our whole system of adversary criminal justice. For it is only then that the government has committed itself to prosecute, and only then that the adverse positions of government and defendant have solidified. It is then that a defendant finds himself faced with the prosecutorial forces of organized society, and immersed in the intricacies of substantive and procedural criminal law. It is this point, therefore, that marks the commencement of the ‘criminal prosecutions’ to [804]*804which alone the explicit guarantees of the Sixth Amendment are applicable. [Citations omitted.]” 406 US at 689r690.