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For the duration of a driving while intoxicated investigation, police officers will usually administer a series of so-called "field sobriety tests" (FSTs). This could consist of a battery of three to five tests, often selected by the officer; these can 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 police agencies in DUI Lawyer Orange County, California and over the nation, a "standardized" battery of three tests will be given - walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand and nystagmus - and they must be scored objectively rather than having an officer's subjective opinion.

How valid are these FSTs? Not so, according to DUI Lawyer Orange County CA Taylor, a former prosecutor and the author of the key legal textbook "Drunk Driving Defense, 6th edition". The tests are basically "designed for failure". In 1991, Taylor reports, Dr. Spurgeon Cole of Clemson University conducted a study 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 and asked them to decide perhaps the suspects had "had too much to drink to drive. " As yet not known to the officers, the blood-alcohol concentration of each of the 21 subjects was. 00%. The outcomes: 46% of that time period the officers gave their opinion that the subject was too inebriated to drive. Quite simply, the FSTs were hardly more accurate at predicting intoxication than flipping a coin. Cole and Nowaczyk, "Field Sobriety Tests: Are They Designed 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 unearthed that 47% of the subjects who would have been arrested based on test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of less than the legal limit. In other words, almost 1 / 2 of all persons "failing" the tests were not legally under the influence of alcohol!

According to the Orange County DUI Attorneyattorneys in Mr. Taylor's Southern California attorney, the fact that these tests are largely unfamiliar to most people, and that they receive under extremely unfortunate circumstances, make them more challenging for folks to do. Only two miscues in performance can result in an individual being classified as "impaired" due to alcohol consumption when the problem might actually be the results of unfamiliarity with the test.