Seattle DUI Attorney | Background on Field Sobriety Testing Science
Before I begin here, let me give credit where credit is due. This is a summation of a speech and written materials given by William Kirk at a DUI CLE I attended a couple of weeks ago. It was a great presentation from a great Seattle DUI attorney. Because the information was so valuable I wanted to talk about it a little bit here. So, if you are interested in field sobriety tests, how they came about, and how accurate they actually are, enjoy this read.
Around 1977 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) began conducting studies to find out if the physical coordination tests that were currently being used actually provided information on whether or not someone was intoxicated. They also wanted to standardize the tests that were proven to be “most” reliable so they could be utilized throughout the country. Note the “most” there – this means they weren’t necessarily looking for accurate tests, just the most accurate tests of those being used.
When the study was conducted, 238 individuals were tested in the laboratory setting. No one was facing the prospect of being arrested if they failed. No one was standing on the side of the road with cars whizzing by. And no one was trying to perform the tests on an imaginary line or with a cop towering over them every step of the way. And the results were still skewed – they showed that cops were terrible at telling who was actually drunk using these tests (47% error rate – or 47 out of 100 arrested had a BAC less than .10).
These same tests were rinsed and repeated over the years to try to get some numbers that showed they were reliable and accurate across the board if standardized procedures were used. But they haven’t really been able to do that, at least with scientific evidence. What they have been able to do is simply make blanket statements as to the validity of the tests, as if we’d just accept what they’ve said as gospel and move on. This makes the tests extremely susceptible to damage on cross-examination.
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