DUI Field Sobriety Tests in Orange County
Orange County police officers will commonly administer a series of so-called field sobriety tests
, or FSTs, during a drunk driving investigation. This may consist of a battery of three to five tests, usually selected by the officer; these may include walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand, horizontal gaze nystagmus, fingers-to-thumb, finger-to-nose, Rhomberg (modified position of attention), alphabet recitation, or hand-pat. In an increasing number of law enforcement agencies, a standardized
battery of three tests must be given — walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand and nystagmus — and they must be scored objectively rather than using an officer's subjective opinion.
As any experienced Orange County DUI attorney will confirm, these field sobriety tests are ineffective at determining intoxication. In 1991, Dr. Spurgeon Cole of Clemson University conducted a study on the accuracy of FSTs. His staff videotaped 21 individuals performing six common field sobriety tests, then showed the tapes to 14 police officers and asked them to decide whether the suspects had had too much to drink to drive.
Unknown to the officers, the blood-alcohol concentration of each of the 21 subjects was .00 percent. The results: 46 percent of the time the officers gave their opinion that the subject was too inebriated to drive. In other words, the FSTs were hardly more accurate at predicting intoxication than flipping a coin. Cole & Nowaczyk, Field Sobriety Tests: Are They Designed for Failure?, 79 Perceptual and Motor Skills 99 (1994).
What about the new, improved standardized
tests? Consider the research funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which resulted in the later adoption of the so-called standardized
field sobriety tests. In that study, researchers determined that the three most effective field sobriety tests (FSTs) were walk-and-turn, one-leg stand, and horizontal gaze nystagmus. Yet, even using just these supposedly more accurate tests, the researchers found that 47 percent of the subjects who would have been arrested based upon test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of less than the legal limit of. 10 percent. In other words, almost half of all persons failing
the tests were not legally under the influence of alcohol!
In 1987, many of the original researchers at the Southern California Research Institute who had been federally funded to come up with a standardized battery published findings of their research. The study concluded that FSTs do not accurately measure driving impairment. In an article entitled Sobriety Tests for the Presence of Drugs, 3(1) Alcohol, Drugs and Driving 25 (1987), researchers recognized that such tests are designed to determine balance, steadiness, and reaction time but concluded that a connection between these factors and driving ability is not apparent since neither a steady stance nor simple movement time is essential to the safe operation of a motor vehicle.
While conceding that field sobriety tests may indicate the presence of alcohol, the researchers found that they do not necessarily measure driving ability.
The fact that these tests are largely unfamiliar to most people and not well practiced, and that the tests are given under extremely adverse conditions, make them more difficult for people to perform. As few as two miscues in performance can result in an individual being classified as impaired because of alcohol consumption when the problem may actually be the result of the unfamiliarity with the test.
In short, field sobriety tests can be effectively handled by an experienced Orange County DUI lawyer.
