The Pros And Cons Of Improved Sobriety Testing

In the 1970’s a group of officers from the Los Angeles Police Department along with researchers from the Southern California Research Institute, developed a set of psychological test called the Improved Sobriety Testing. These were later renamed as the Standardized Field Sobriety Tests. These psychological divided attention tests were designed to be used by police officers on the roadside. They were intended to give an officer probable cause of driver impairment on the roadside, and to provide a reliable tool to aid in the decision to arrest or release. Although performances on the tests are subject to be testified on, they alone are not commonly accepted as proof of impairment, unless drivers refuse BAC tests. They are used however, as a precursor

Initially, they were used to validate that police officers could determine impairment as BAC levels higher than the current .08 standard. The SFST’s have undergone many updates and revisions since their initial debut. They currently consist of the horizontal gaze Nystagmus, the walk and turn, and the one leg stand. Past versions included the coin test, tracing test, Romberg balance, and the finger to nose tests. The drivers performance during the battery of tests alone is only part of the decision making process. To determine impairment, the police officer’s observations of the vehicle in operation, its stopping when being pulled over, the drivers exit when getting out of the vehicle and the drivers answers during an oral interview are also taken into account. This is referred to as the “Totality of the Circumstances”. It is the totality of the circumstances, combined with chemical testing that proves of disproves DUI or DWI (Downey, L., King, R., Papafotiou, K., Swann, P., Ogden, E., Boorman, M., & Stough, C., 2012). Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus has become a very useful tool in evaluating a person’s degree of central nervous system