DUI Info - Why Field Sobriety Tests Do not Always Reflect Your Capability to Drive a Vehicle

Field sobriety tests. Normal tests include horizontal stare nystagmus (otherwise known as HGN), walk and turn, one leg stand, counting backwords, touch your nose, and say the alphabet. If you've never seen an authorities officer provide the tests, you most likely performed them in university at a fraternity celebration.

To hear an authorities officer tell it, the failure of field sobriety tests is concrete proof that somebody is too drunk to drive. In truth field sobriety tests tell authorities policemans one thing - the likelihood that someone is too drunk to drive - and this is just if the tests are done under optimal screening conditions.

Let's say you are driving around in Seattle, Washington, minding your very own business. It is late at night and you get lost, wind up on the 520 bridge, and wind up attempting to reverse in Kirkland. At that time a Kirkland law enforcement agent pulls you over for falling short to kip down a best half circle (or some other approximate infraction) and asks if you've had anything to drink. Since you have not you react in the negative. This is when the policeman asks you to take the field sobriety tests - I mean, if you have not been consuming you should be able to pass them right (even though in Seattle and Kirkland and everywhere else in Washington State you can decline to take field sobriety tests as part of your constitutional right to stay quiet).

He asks you to carry out 3 tests: the walk and turn, the one leg stand, and the horizontal gaze nystagmus tests. You comply and do your finest, and he lets you know that you are under arrest for DUI and should come down to the station for a breath test! How did this occur? There are a few reasons. First, the policeman has a predisposition to assume you are drunk. He is, after all, a police officer. He wouldn't ask you to take the field sobriety tests unless he currently had some suspicion that you were driving under the influence. Second, even if you do all the tests stone cold sober, there has to do with a 17 % opportunity that you will have been found to have actually fallen short! Which is under ideal screening conditions!

Tests performed making use of field sobriety tests found that the walk and turn tests showed a correct evaluation 75 % of the time, the one leg stand 75 % of the time, and the HGN 81 % of the time. You were likely to correctly evaluate whether or not somebody was really too drunk to drive only 83 % of the time if you did all 3 together. This is why they have the breath test (whose accuracy is also questioned, though, undoubtedly with a different kind of mistake and mistake rate) - field sobriety tests really don't work that good at all.

To hear an authorities policeman inform it, the failure of field sobriety tests is concrete evidence that somebody is too drunk to drive. In reality field sobriety tests inform authorities policemans one thing - the likelihood that someone is too drunk to drive - and this is only if the tests are performed under ideal screening conditions. This is when the officer asks you to take the field sobriety tests - I imply, if you have not been drinking you must be able to pass them right (even though in Seattle and Kirkland and almost everywhere else in Washington State you can decline to take field sobriety tests as part of your constitutional right to remain quiet).

He asks you to carry out 3 tests: the walk and turn, the one leg stand, and the horizontal stare nystagmus tests. Tests conducted using field sobriety tests discovered that the walk and turn tests showed a correct assessment 75 % of the time, the one leg stand 75 % of the time, and the HGN 81 % of the time.

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