One of the tools that are typically used by police officers in the investigation of suspected DUI cases are field sobriety tests or FSTs. These are usually comprised of 3 to 5 tests, all of which are supposedly designed to determine whether a driver is incapable of driving due to alcohol intoxication. These tests can include anything from having the driver walk and turn, stand on one leg, recite the alphabet, touching the finger to the nose and many more. A standardized scoring system is then used to help the officer decide whether or not the subject passes or fails the test.

While it would seem that these field sobriety tests are rooted in scientific study, that this is not quite the case. What many people do not realize is that the police officer’s decision to arrest the driver is actually made even before the field sobriety test is conducted. These test therefore only serve to give the police officer in question enough evidence to arrest the driver. What does this mean?

Well, obviously since the police officer has already decided upon administering the field sobriety test that the subject is in fact guilty of drunk driving, he or she is already is conditioned to see any results of the test as evidence that the subject is indeed guilty of DUI. In addition, there are many factors that make the results of the field sobriety test almost sure to be flawed. These tests are almost always conducted late at night, with less than optimal road and lighting conditions, all of which make it virtually impossible for any subject to pass the test convincingly. Add to that the fact that the situation is often quite stressful to an already agitated driver who is possibly unfamiliar with the tests, and you have the makings of a test that is almost certain to be skewed from the outset.

But that is not all that is wrong with field sobriety tests. These tests have actually been deemed irrelevant to DUI investigations, and are in fact inaccurate enough to render them destined for failure. A research institute in California has even been commissioned to come up with a standardized set of DUI tests that were intended to be more accurate than the test currently used by police officers nationwide. Yet after long months of research and money, even this company was forced to conclude that a huge majority of drivers on the road would fail these tests even if they were well below the legal .10% blood alcohol limit!  In other words, there was simply no way that standardized field sobriety tests could produce results with any usable degree of accuracy. Subsequent efforts by the research institute in question to revamp their test fared no better and an inordinate number of non-drunken drivers still failed the tests.

All this however pales in comparison to a research that was conducted to determine the reliability of field sobriety tests. In the study, a number of subjects were administered field sobriety tests and videotaped. The videos were then shown to police officers and they were asked to pinpoint which of the “suspects” were actually drunk. What the police officers did not know however was that all the subjects in the videotape were in fact totally sober, with zero alcohol levels in their blood. The results were astounding to say the least. Close to half of these sober subjects were seen as drunk by the police officers, which effectively demonstrated the inaccuracy of field sobriety tests.