DUI Field Sobriety Tests Are Not Fair
November 15, 2007
Here is some information that all Memphis DUI lawyers should know. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) the most reliable test to determine whether or not a person is guilty of driving under the influence outside of a blood or breathalyzer test is the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) test.
The HGN test is basically the “watch my finger” test. It consists of the dui arrest officer conducting a very specific technique where he asks you to follow his finger as he crosses it back and forth. The test sounds simple but it really isn’t. To conduct the test properly the officer must go through a specific protocol of using correct timing, angles, positioning, and passes. The test is so exacting that the NHTSA manual prints the instructions to giving it on over four pages. Because the test is so difficult to administer properly most dui arresting officers can’t conduct the test to the specific protocols that it requires. Hower, even when they do it correctly the test is a reliable indicator of intoxication 77% of the time. That means that almost 25% of the people who police believe are intoxicated when they give this test are not actually intoxicated. This is according to the NHTSA’s own statistics
Think about that. Of the people who are arrested for DUI following a HGN test it is likely that 25% of them were not intoxicated. If you were arrested for DUI because you failed the HGN there is a good chance that there was no probable cause for your arrest. And without probable cause you should have never received a ticket.
Contact a Memphis DUI Lawyer to help you in your DUI case.
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