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For the duration of a driving while intoxicated investigation, police will often administer a number of alleged "field sobriety tests" (FSTs). This may consist of a battery of 3 to 5 tests, frequently selected by the officer; these can sometimes 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 force agencies in DUI Lawyer Orange County, California and across 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 instead of using an officer's subjective opinion.

How valid are these FSTs? Not so, in accordance with 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 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 officers and asked them to decide perhaps the suspects had "had a lot to drink to operate a vehicle. " Unknown to the officers, the blood-alcohol concentration of each of the 21 subjects was. 00%. The results: 46% of the time the officers gave their opinion that the subject was too inebriated to drive. Quite simply, the FSTs were scarcely more accurate at predicting intoxication than flipping a coin. Cole and Nowaczyk, "Field Sobriety Tests: Are They Made for Failure? ", 79 Perceptual and Motor Skills 99 (1994).

What about the new, improved "standardized" DUI tests? Research funded by the National Highway Traffic Administration determined that the three most effective 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 discovered that 47% of the subjects who would have now been arrested based on test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of less than the legal limit. Quite simply, almost half all persons "failing" the tests were not legally under the influence of alcohol!

Based on the Orange County DUI Attorneysolicitors in Mr. Taylor's Southern California attorney, the fact that these tests are largely unfamiliar to many people, and that they are given under extremely adverse conditions, make sure they are more difficult for folks to execute. Only two miscues in performance may result in an individual being classified as "impaired" because of alcohol consumption if the problem might actually function as result of unfamiliarity with the test.