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Throughout a driving while intoxicated investigation, police officers will usually administer a series of so-called "field sobriety tests" (FSTs). This may contain a battery of three to five tests, often selected by the officer; these may 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 amount of law enforcement 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 as opposed to utilizing an officer's subjective opinion.

How valid are these FSTs? Not to, according to DUI Lawyer Orange County CA Taylor, a former prosecutor and the writer of the leading legal textbook "Drunk Driving Defense, 6th edition". The tests are ostensibly "designed for failure". In 1991, Taylor reports, Dr . Spurgeon Cole of Clemson University conducted a report 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 whether the suspects had "had too much to drink to drive. " Unknown to the officers, the blood-alcohol concentration of every of the 21 subjects was. 00%. The outcomes: 46% of times the officers gave their opinion that the subject was too inebriated to operate a vehicle. In other words, 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).

How about the newest, 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 found that 47% of the subjects who would have been arrested based upon test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of significantly less than the legal limit. In other words, very nearly half all persons "failing" the tests were not legally under the influence of alcohol!

According to the Orange County DUI Attorneysolicitors in Mr. Taylor's Southern California attorney, the fact that these tests are largely unfamiliar to the majority of people, and they are given under excessively unfortunate circumstances, make sure they are more difficult for individuals to do. Merely two miscues in performance can lead to an individual being classified as "impaired" due to alcohol consumption if the problem might actually be the result of unfamiliarity with the test.