The Problems with the So-Called "Reliable" DUI Walk-and-Turn Field Sobriety Test
The walk-and-turn test is one of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s “standardized” DUI field sobriety tests. This means that it is deemed “reliable” as an accurate measure of one’s alcohol and/or drug impairment. There are two problems with this.
The first problem is that the walk-and-turn DUI field sobriety test is only 68% accurate. Although...by DUI standards…this percentage is considered high, I can’t think of another scientific forum where a 68% accuracy rate would be considered even close to reliable. This basically means that one out of every three people is falsely arrested for DUI based on this field sobriety test.
The second problem with the walk-and-turn DUI field sobriety test is that there is a significant portion of our population that can’t perform this test well, even while sober. This includes people who are overweight, people over 60 years old, people who have suffered any type of injury, and those wearing shoes with heels over two inches high.
Unfortunately, these people are rarely, if ever, excused from taking this FST, adding to the inaccurate results of this so-called “reliable” DUI field sobriety test.
