7-11 is a great store, they have a great system for franchisees to make a profit, and if I were a programmer I would quit and buy a 7-11.But anyway, last night I was getting gas at Sev's, when I heard a young guy barking out orders. There were three police - two guys and a girl - and they were putting a young female motorist through a sobriety test. First the cop moved his flashlight side-to-side across her eyes, then did the close-your-eyes-touch-your-nose thing. The cop performing the test had a clipboard, and noted each result carefully.Next, they did take nine steps toe-to-heel while counting to 9, turn around on your front foot, then count to 9 and do the same thing back the other way. Do you understand these instructions? No. Repeat. No. Finally, the one policeman demonstrated, while the other one held the DWI suspect. I wondered if they could not just smell her breath or give a breathalyzer or something.I think she only got to three steps before she fell over. Next they did the hold one foot six inches off the ground and count 1001 to 1010. Do you understand? No. Repeat. No. Again, cop demonstrates. During demonstration, girl falls over a couple times, other male cop has to hold her up. Cop demonstrated again, finally suspect tries, and immediately falls over. Cop catches her.At this point, I realized the girl could not even stand for five seconds without the male cop holding her up. She was plainly drunk from the start, beyond any doubt. So here is what I think was going on.No matter how drunk she is, a cop can't simply say in court "she was drunk." He has to go through a rigorous set of steps, and take detailed scientific readings with two other police as witnesses, recording how many steps before she fell over, and so on. The personal opinion of a policeman as to whether she was drunk simply is not good enough for the court.Why can't they use a breathalyzer? I used to keep my own breathalyzer. It would go from 10 times the legal limit to 0 in the space of about 15 to 20 minutes. Whether I had one drink or five. So I can guess this has been exposed to where the breathalyzer does not hold up in court.Why not a blood test? I guess the personal opinion of a policeman is not enough to go around sticking needles in random motorists. People will not stand to have needles stuck in them by random policemen with an opinion. And so their only option, I guess, is to go through this rigorous process, which seems silly at times, but is still the best solution in an imperfect world.My friend got pulled over for DUI the other week. He accidentally pulled over onto someone's front lawn that looked like a street to him. He told them he was on prescription medication, and showed them the bottle. They let him drive away. When his first move was to turn the wrong way onto the street, they made him walk home.I guess if you are on prescription medication, then the 9-steps test will not hold up in court, and the police basically have to let you go. Such a seemingly simple problem, to tell if a driver is drunk. But when performed by a system, it may become impossible to perform.

I agree. Seems crazy to me, and I dimly remember a Steve Martin film where he is put through ever more ridiculous tests (juggle 5 balls etc - might be A man with 2 brains). In the UK it is different. You get breathalysed at the scene of suspect. They are small kits and easy for officers to carry around. I am not sure of the legal procedure, but they certainly have equipment back the police station and when you are arrested for drink driving they do take a blood test as well. The blood test of course works for other drugs as well.

QuoteOriginally posted by: rmaxIn the UK it is different. You get breathalysed at the scene of suspect. They are small kits and easy for officers to carry around.In the US, I believe the standard for probable cause, to administer field sobriety test, is if the motorist admits to having 1 drink. So policeman asks have you been drinking, not even one? Most people who have actually had only 1 drink will answer "yes, I had one drink, I am not drunk, fuck you." People who have had 4 will say "no sir, not been drinking, sir."So let's assume police wait outside restaurant district (you won't meet any cute girls waiting outside the dive bar). The number of people who have had 1 drink is 4 times the number of people who have had 4 drinks. The number who have had 4 and claim to have had 0 is half of those. So police will administer 9 breathalyzers.Of those, half of the one-drink people will come in illegal owing to residual alcohol in the soft tissues of the mouth. Because slurp the last centimeter of their expensive glass of wine is the last thing they did before leaving. So 80% of breathalyzers, resulting in arrest, vehicle impound, and needle test at headquarters, might be false positives.So you can see why they might prefer to try to determine if someone is actually falling down or not.

This reminds me of a Supreme Court DUI case decided a few months ago. As I recall, the police stopped a man for driving erratically. The man failed the field sobriety test but he refused to do the breathalyzer. So the policeman took the man to the nearby hospital where, against the man's wishes, a blood test was performed (showing him to be extremely drunk). The High Court threw out the blood test evidence (by a 5-4 decision) saying the police must try to get a warrant from a judge before ordering blood tests for drunken-driving suspects.