Officers working the night shift in a busy or college town
are bound to cross paths with a drunk driver from time to time. After
conducting a traffic stop, if there is suspicion that the driver is under the
influence an officer will put the driver through a field sobriety test. We’ve
all seen the three main tests on a television show or movie, but what’s the
science behind them? I’ve set out to discover and report just that. The Standardized
Field Sobriety Test (SFST; you know how the criminal justice profession loves
their acronyms) is a set of three physical tests that can give an officer
probable cause for an arrest. The three tests are the horizontal gaze
nystagmus, walk-and-turn, and one-leg stand. These tests are administered and
evaluated by the officer conducting them.
The horizontal gaze nystagmus is the first test
administered. Nystagmus is essentially the rapid, uncontrollable movements of
one’s eyes. This is usually found in infants and can lead to vision loss;
however it also occurs to those under the influence of alcohol. An officer will
hold an object such as a pen or pencil or flashlight and tells the driver to
follow it with their eyes while keeping their head completely still as the
officer waves it slowly from side to side. The three criterion the officer is
looking for is inability to follow the moving object with the eyes, if there is
distinct jerking of the eye at maximum deviation, and if the angle of onset of
jerking is within 45 degrees of center. The officer does this test for each
eye and if four or more of the criterion are present between both eyes, then the suspect is
likely to have a BAC over the legal driving limit. This test can also be used
to determine someone who is under the influence of other drugs such as some
inhalants, barbiturates and other depressants.
The next test is the walk-and-turn. This is the first of the
two tests that are “divided attention” tests. These tests are designed to be
relatively easy for persons who are not impaired by drugs and/or alcohol. A
suspected drunk driver has to listen to oral instruction from the officer while
performing simple physical tasks. In this test a person is told by the officer
to take nine steps, heel to toe, along a straight line. After nine steps the
driver is instructed to turn around one hundred and eighty degrees on one foot
and take nine more steps in a straight line. There are several indicators of
impairment in this test including loss of balance, not touching heel to toe,
using arms for balance and making an improper turn. If two or more of the
indicators are demonstrated, research states that 79% of people will have a BAC
of .08 or higher.
Last but not least is the one leg stand test. A driver is told
to stand with one foot six inches off the ground and count out loud to the
officer by thousands (one one thousand, two one thousand etc.) until the
officer says stop. The test runs 30 seconds. In this test there are four
indications of impairment which include swaying while balancing, using arms to
balance, putting the raised foot down before being instructed to and hopping to
maintain balance. If two or more of these indicators are present during the
test, research shows that 83% of the time the subject will have a BAC over
.08.
When all three of these tests are combined (and they usually
are), officers are accurate in 91% of cases. A good question to ask yourself is
if you think a 91% success rate is sufficient for these tests to be used by
police or not. There might be times when it is difficult as an officer to tell
if someone is under the influence or not, which may bring up issues such as
police ethics and discretion. Other times, it is readily apparent that someone
is under the influence such as our friend “Mr. Turner” in the video below.
**Disclaimer: This video contains adult language. Viewer discretion is advised.
Source: http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/alcohol/sfst/appendix_a.htm
I've seen that video about 40 times now, and at first I legitimately thought it was a joke, but now its clear to me that it is real, and this is the kind of stuff police officers run into at 5 in the morning. The video will continue to be funny everytime I watch it. As far as tying it in with the blog, I feel that these three tests are plausibe and effective boasting a 91 percent arrest rate. Granted there are some people that can perfrom various tasks under the influence very well, these tasks are obviously designed so that drunk people will fail them. There really isn't much more that an officer can do, and these seem to have become a comfortanble norm in society.
ReplyDeleteAs far as police ethics go, its easy to tell when someone is drunk, even if they can pass the field sobriety tests. At that point it is the officer's discretion to get the drunk mototrist off the road, because the have a duty to protect the public from crazy and potentially fatl drivers. We all know the repercussions of drunk driving and from a police standpoint its way better to always get a drunk driver off the road, than to let a potiential drunk one free just because he passed the field sobriety test. People like Mr Turner over here have no business being behind a wheel in that state.
Also did he say that he was being charged with being under the influence of model glue as well? Wow, some interesting people out there to say the least.
While doing an internship with a police department near where I am from, I have observed first hand a field sobriety test being performed. The agency that I was with did not have portable breathalyzers so they went by the outcome of the field sobriety testing.The suspect performed all three of the steps and from what I could see he did nothing wrong. The officer believed that he failed the test and arrested the suspect. The suspects car was towed and he was taken to the county jail. Once we were at the jail the officer had the suspect perform a breathalyzer and he passed it. Since the suspect was already arrested he had to post bail and since it was the weekend he could not get his car out until Monday. I asked the officer what made him think that the man was possibly intoxicated but he did not have an answer. If I was the suspect that had been arrested I would have been really upset. Not only did he have to be bailed out he also had to pay to get his vehicle out of impound. 91% is a decent number but I wouldn't want to be in the percent of people that are falsely arrested. I think that all agencies should use the field sobriety testing along with a portable breathalyzer.
ReplyDeleteI was in the army of eight years as a military police officer and I have first hand experence giving the Standardized Field Sobriety Test. For the driver it is not always easy for anyone to conduct. That is why I always added counting, resighting the alpha bet, and hand excirsizes to perform inorder to prove a high level them just 91%. While 91% is good more is always better. This reminds me of a situation that had occured to me while in the Army. On a cold January night I pulled over a suspected drunks drive, performed all of the Standardized Field Sobriety Tests, and he falled badly. I asked the man if he would take a breathalizer test, an with shock an aw he said yes. Well wonders never siece, he passed having not even a drop of alchol 0.00, WOW. By the way the video, very funny.
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