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For the duration of a drunk driving investigation, police officers will usually administer a number of so-called "field sobriety tests" (FSTs). This might consist of a battery of three to five tests, often 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 a increasing quantity of police agencies in DUI Lawyer Orange County, California and throughout the nation, a "standardized" battery of three tests is going to be given - walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand and nystagmus - plus they should be scored objectively rather than utilizing an officer's subjective opinion.

How valid are these FSTs? Not very, according to DUI Lawyer Orange County CA Taylor, a former prosecutor and the author of the leading legal textbook "Drunk Driving Defense, 6th edition". The tests are fundamentally "designed for failure". In 1991, Taylor reports, Dr . Spurgeon Cole of Clemson University conducted a report on the accuracy of field sobriety tests. His staff videotaped 21 individuals performing 6 common field sobriety tests, then showed the tapes to 14 police officers and asked them to decide whether the suspects had "had a lot to drink to operate a vehicle. " Not known to the officers, the blood-alcohol concentration of each of the 21 subjects was. 00%. The results: 46% of times 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 and Nowaczyk, "Field Sobriety Tests: Are They Created for Failure? ", 79 Perceptual and Motor Skills 99 (1994).

Think about the new, improved "standardized" DUI tests? Research funded by the National Highway Traffic Administration determined that the three most reliable field sobriety tests were walk-and-turn, one-leg stand, and horizontal gaze nystagmus. Yet, even using these supposedly more accurate -- and objectively scored -- tests, the researchers found that 47% of the subjects who have been arrested in relation to test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of less than the legal limit. In other words, very nearly half of all persons "failing" the tests were not legally intoxicated by alcohol!

According to the Orange County DUI Attorneylawyers in Mr. Taylor's Southern California attorney, the fact these tests are largely unfamiliar to the majority of people, and that they are given under extremely adverse conditions, cause them to become more difficult for people to perform. As few as two miscues in performance can result in a person being classified as "impaired" because of alcohol consumption if the problem could possibly function as the result of unfamiliarity with the test.