Florida DUI Investigations and Roadside Sobriety Exercises

Roadside sobriety exercises are a critical part of a majority of DUI cases. Roadside sobriety exercises is the common name for the "National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration Standardized Field Sobriety Tests." Otherwise abbreviated NHTSA SFST's.

An important thing that anybody should be told about the SFST's is that, under Florida Law, there isn't a requirement that you perform the exercises. A good portion of experienced DUI attorneys will state the SFST's are designed to fail and nearly impossible to pass with a .000 blood alcohol level. This is a difficult proposition for many to believe. Society, specifically members on the jury, through television and other sources of information are indoctrinated to believe that the roadside sobriety exercises accurately determine who is impaired.

If done correctly inside of a closed setting, roadside sobriety exercises might be fairly accurate in determining who is too impaired to safely operate a motor vehicle. Indeed, the law enforcement officials who have to learn how to give the instructions are taught during a classroom setting. The class which teaches the police officers the right way to properly administer the roadside sobriety exercises is a 3 day class. This highlights a fundamentally unfair proposition. Why do the cops get three full days of classroom instruction complete with live exercises to be able to get the roadsides correct? A driver doesn't get three full days. The police expect near perfection from the driver at 3:00am on a Saturday morning on the side of the road while it is raining. Not only is it not fair, it also clearly illustrates the proposition that the tests are designed to fail.

There are only 3 roadside sobriety exercises that are correlated to impairment and recognized by the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration. Those three tests are the walk and turn; the one leg stand and the horizontal gaze nystagmus test. These tests are "standardized" meaning the tests must be conducted the exact same way every single time under the appropriate conditions to ensure that the results to have any validity to a DUI case.

A DUI attorney should scrutinize the multiple variables that effected the end result of the test. The police are trained to reduce the impact of these variables, but the effect can usually not be completely eliminated. As for instance, the horizontal gaze nystagmus test can be severely effected and the results rendered useless as a result of lights passing through the field of vision. This is known as an optokinetic nystagmus and is a specific type of horizontal gaze nystagmus. Most cops are trained to realize the potential for an optokinetic nystagmus and will turn off their overhead emergency lights during a DUI investigation. However, there is nearly no way to avoid an optokinetic nystagmus if ever the DUI investigation is taking place on a busy road during the night. The issues are simply too numerous to overcome. Headlights traveling through the field of vision, shadows created by passing lights as well as the shadows contrasting with the lights will likely render the test inaccurate at best.

A crucial variable for the walk and turn test is whether or not the surface selected for the test is flat and level. Many times an officer's report will state the exercises were performed on a "flat and level surface." However, it is often a good idea to investigate the precise location despite what is in the officer's report and despite what might seem like a flat and level surface in the DUI video. A good way to investigate is simply to put a tennis ball on the surface where the DUI investigation took place. To the surprise of many people the tennis ball starts to roll away indicating how the surface was not flat and level.

Daniel Rosenberg and Michael Dye are Florida DUI attorneys practicing law in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, Florida. For more information, please visit their websites at http:DRosenbergLaw.com and http://AlcoholAndDrugLaw.com.

About the Author

M. Dye Daniel Rosenberg and Michael Dye are Florida DUI attorneys practicing law in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, Florida. For more information, please visit their websites at http:DRosenbergLaw.com and http://AlcoholAndDrugLaw.com.