User Panel
Posted: 11/21/2008 5:26:12 PM EDT
someone told me that this is sometimes used as a sobriety test. Is that true? I know many people who can't do it while stone cold sober.
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ive heard this and i think ive seen it on cops before. theres no way i could do it.
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The way it works is sober people say they can't do it and drunk people try to do it. Every once in a while you meet someone who can do it though.
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I saw a guy on cops do it.
The officer said: "Um... that's actually the first time someone's actually done that." |
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i can do it but i have to go real slow and think about each letter
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I've alway wondered what the point of that was. If I can do it does it prove I'm drunk? If I can't do it? Most can't anyways, so what exactly does it prove?
zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba? I've practiced it |
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The way it works is sober people say they can't do it and drunk people try to do it. Every once in a while you meet someone who can do it though. LOL I've often wondered if that was the case. I asked one of the officers here on campus, they're actual sworn officers not just rent-a-cops, and they said it's more for their amusement then anything |
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No, its not part of the Standardized Field Sobriety test. Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, Walk and Turn, and One-Leg stand, are the three test that are used during standardized field sobriety testing..I prefere to use the word demonstration in place of the word test when writing my DUI arrest reports .....
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Can someone educate me on the purpose of sobriety tests? If you have enough probable cause to pull someone out of the car and perform sobriety tests, don't you also have enough probable cause to just give 'em the breathylizer? Or is the breathylizer considered a search of some sort and requires a higher standard of evidence?
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Some people use it but it has not been conclusively proven to indicate impairment. That's why there are the SFSTs.
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Can someone educate me on the purpose of sobriety tests? If you have enough probable cause to pull someone out of the car and perform sobriety tests, don't you also have enough probable cause to just give 'em the breathylizer? Or is the breathylizer considered a search of some sort and requires a higher standard of evidence? Are you talking about an Intoxilyzer or a Portable Breath Test. The former is a big-ass machine that needs to be certified and checked by professionals and the latter is a tiny little tester kept in a patrol car usually. |
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Maybe thats the test
"Aw hell I couldn't even do that if I wasn't drunk! " |
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Can someone educate me on the purpose of sobriety tests? If you have enough probable cause to pull someone out of the car and perform sobriety tests, don't you also have enough probable cause to just give 'em the breathylizer? Or is the breathylizer considered a search of some sort and requires a higher standard of evidence? The PBT (preliminary breath test)or breathylizer is not admissable in court. I do not use a PBT nor do I recommend the use of it. After I do my field sobriety, I will read you implied consent and ask for a sample of your blood, breath, or urine (I usually pick breath) and will either take you the hospital for the blood or breath, or back to the station and take a sample of your breath using the Intoxilyzer 5000. |
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the portable breath test. Here in Maine (and in many other states) a PBT is not accurate enough or monitored closely enough to be used as definitive evidence in a criminal trial. They usually sit in a case in a patrol car, are whipped out, and blown into. There is usually no routine maintenance, no formal testing procedure, etc etc. That all adds up to reasonable doubt and no conviction. |
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A drunk english Ph.d cannot properly recite the alphabet... forward. No need to get tricky.
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Can someone educate me on the purpose of sobriety tests? If you have enough probable cause to pull someone out of the car and perform sobriety tests, don't you also have enough probable cause to just give 'em the breathylizer? Or is the breathylizer considered a search of some sort and requires a higher standard of evidence? The PBT or breathylizer is not admissable in court. I do not use a PBT nor do I recommend the use of it. After I do my field sobriety, I will read you implied consent and ask for a sample of your blood, breath, or urine (I usually pick breath) and will either take you the hospital for the blood or breath, or back to the station and take a sample of your breath using the Intoxilyzer 5000. but isn't the PBT a better indicator of whether someone is over the limit than field sobriety tests? Why not just pull 'em over, and if you have any indication that they're intoxicated, give them a PBT, and if they blow over the limit, take them to the station for the more accurate test? I guess that videotaped FSTs would look good in court if they challenge the PBT. |
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the portable breath test. Here in Maine (and in many other states) a PBT is not accurate enough or monitored closely enough to be used as definitive evidence in a criminal trial. They usually sit in a case in a patrol car, are whipped out, and blown into. There is usually no routine maintenance, no formal testing procedure, etc etc. That all adds up to reasonable doubt and no conviction. So in that case the PBT isn't really that important at all, just another test to do after the FSTs but before the real BAC check at the station? |
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Can someone educate me on the purpose of sobriety tests? If you have enough probable cause to pull someone out of the car and perform sobriety tests, don't you also have enough probable cause to just give 'em the breathylizer? Or is the breathylizer considered a search of some sort and requires a higher standard of evidence? The PBT or breathylizer is not admissable in court. I do not use a PBT nor do I recommend the use of it. After I do my field sobriety, I will read you implied consent and ask for a sample of your blood, breath, or urine (I usually pick breath) and will either take you the hospital for the blood or breath, or back to the station and take a sample of your breath using the Intoxilyzer 5000. but isn't the PBT a better indicator of whether someone is over the limit than field sobriety tests? Why not just pull 'em over, and if you have any indication that they're intoxicated, give them a PBT, and if they blow over the limit, take them to the station for the more accurate test? I guess that videotaped FSTs would look good in court if they challenge the PBT. You're missing the point. A PBT is not accurate enough to determine someone's BAC. Sure, it might spit out a number....but what good is the number if it isn't a proper depiction of someone's BAC? |
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If you learned the alphabet as a song, you won't be able to do it without practice. If you can picture all the letters in a row (like above the chalkboard in elementary school), you can read it off backwards pretty easy.
I've seen where officers will ask you to start at a certain letter like 'g' and stop at 'm'. You will see the person singing the alphabet song in his head then starts reciting it from 'g', but they have a hard time stopping at 'm', cause they want to finish the bit of the song that goes 'l-m-n-o-p'. Thats when you get accused of unable to follow directions clearly. It can be really funny at times. |
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the portable breath test. Here in Maine (and in many other states) a PBT is not accurate enough or monitored closely enough to be used as definitive evidence in a criminal trial. They usually sit in a case in a patrol car, are whipped out, and blown into. There is usually no routine maintenance, no formal testing procedure, etc etc. That all adds up to reasonable doubt and no conviction. So in that case the PBT isn't really that important at all, just another test to do after the FSTs but before the real BAC check at the station? Nope. If you use a PBT in Maine you run the risk of getting the entire drunk driving charge tossed out. Giving a PBT at the outset of a stop and seeing a number can be prejudicial for the officer administering the other sobriety tests. Think about it....if I see a .10 on the PBT before I do any FSTs, I am not going to give much creedence to the FSTs, because I already "know" you are a .10. |
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I've seen it on Obscure Police Videos VII.
Other than that, no. |
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I was taught not to use a PBT test in my DUI classes. A good DUI lawyer will tear your ass up in court if you use a PBT
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IIRC, you have to be observed for 15min (ie: no additional alcohol consumption) before the portable breath test can be administered. Backwards alphabet and similar antics are just a time waster so that neither you or the cop get bored before the 15 minutes are up and the test can be administered.
Kharn |
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I've seen it on Obscure Police Videos VII. Other than that, no. |
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IIRC, you have to be observed for 15min (ie: no additional alcohol consumption) before the portable breath test can be administered. Backwards alphabet and similar antics are just a time waster so that neither you or the cop get bored before the 15 minutes are up and the test can be administered. Kharn Here I have to wait 20 minutes from seeing the violator to administer the intoxilyzer test, I don't know about PBT because I don't use them. |
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I watched an officer ask my friend to do that once except with the addition of touching his thumb to one of his other fingers and working across the hand and then reversing the order
ex: thumb to pinky - z, thumb to ring - x, thumb to middle - y It seemed pretty pointless to me. |
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My aunt, a defense attorney in Houston, says that TX USED to use this back in the 80's.
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IIRC, you have to be observed for 15min (ie: no additional alcohol consumption) before the portable breath test can be administered. Backwards alphabet and similar antics are just a time waster so that neither you or the cop get bored before the 15 minutes are up and the test can be administered. Kharn Not in NYS. You are thinking about the actual Datamaster test. That doesnt apply to alcosensors |
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I watched an officer ask my friend to do that once except with the addition of touching his thumb to one of his other fingers and working across the hand and then reversing the order ex: thumb to pinky - z, thumb to ring - x, thumb to middle - y It seemed pretty pointless to me. That's the Finger Dexterity Test. That is another dated and obscure test rarely in use today. |
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the portable breath test. Here in Maine (and in many other states) a PBT is not accurate enough or monitored closely enough to be used as definitive evidence in a criminal trial. They usually sit in a case in a patrol car, are whipped out, and blown into. There is usually no routine maintenance, no formal testing procedure, etc etc. That all adds up to reasonable doubt and no conviction. So in that case the PBT isn't really that important at all, just another test to do after the FSTs but before the real BAC check at the station? Nope. If you use a PBT in Maine you run the risk of getting the entire drunk driving charge tossed out. Giving a PBT at the outset of a stop and seeing a number can be prejudicial for the officer administering the other sobriety tests. Think about it....if I see a .10 on the PBT before I do any FSTs, I am not going to give much creedence to the FSTs, because I already "know" you are a .10. gotcha. Can I assume that this varies by state? On a couple episodes of "Cops" i've seen the officer whip out the PBT right after he suspected intoxication, but of course that's just a TV show so I don't know how much credibility to give it. |
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I watched an officer ask my friend to do that once except with the addition of touching his thumb to one of his other fingers and working across the hand and then reversing the order ex: thumb to pinky - z, thumb to ring - x, thumb to middle - y It seemed pretty pointless to me. That's the Finger Dexterity Test. That is another dated and obscure test rarely in use today. At least I now know its intended purpose wasn't just to get someone to say "what now? I couldn't even do that if i was sober" |
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Can someone educate me on the purpose of sobriety tests? If you have enough probable cause to pull someone out of the car and perform sobriety tests, don't you also have enough probable cause to just give 'em the breathylizer? Or is the breathylizer considered a search of some sort and requires a higher standard of evidence? The PBT (preliminary breath test)or breathylizer is not admissable in court. I do not use a PBT nor do I recommend the use of it. After I do my field sobriety, I will read you implied consent and ask for a sample of your blood, breath, or urine (I usually pick breath) and will either take you the hospital for the blood or breath, or back to the station and take a sample of your breath using the Intoxilyzer 5000. It was in NC if you got them to the jail and they refused to blow on the intoxilizer. We were constantly calibrating our PBT's and very rarely didn't match the intoxilizer unless the suspect had just chugged a beer or burped into it. I prefered to take them in for a blood test since it is inherently more accurate and less chance for the lawyers to get them off on it. |
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No, its not part of the Standardized Field Sobriety test. Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, Walk and Turn, and One-Leg stand, are the three test that are used during standardized field sobriety testing..I prefere to use the word demonstration in place of the word test when writing my DUI arrest reports ..... This is the correct answer. SFST is the gold standard. I am not familiar with word demo or word test, we never did that. We would also ask the subject to close their eyes, tip the head back and observe the amount of front to back and side to side sway. Had plenty of folks almost drop at this point... -Z |
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Can someone educate me on the purpose of sobriety tests? If you have enough probable cause to pull someone out of the car and perform sobriety tests, don't you also have enough probable cause to just give 'em the breathylizer? Or is the breathylizer considered a search of some sort and requires a higher standard of evidence? The PBT (preliminary breath test)or breathylizer is not admissable in court. I do not use a PBT nor do I recommend the use of it. After I do my field sobriety, I will read you implied consent and ask for a sample of your blood, breath, or urine (I usually pick breath) and will either take you the hospital for the blood or breath, or back to the station and take a sample of your breath using the Intoxilyzer 5000. It was in NC if you got them to the jail and they refused to blow on the intoxilizer. We were constantly calibrating our PBT's and very rarely didn't match the intoxilizer unless the suspect had just chugged a beer or burped into it. I prefered to take them in for a blood test since it is inherently more accurate and less chance for the lawyers to get them off on it. according to wiki, breathylizer tests are as much as 20% different than blood tests, because the amount of alcohol that gets into a person's breath compared to in their blood varies from individual to individual. is that true? |
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I watched an officer ask my friend to do that once except with the addition of touching his thumb to one of his other fingers and working across the hand and then reversing the order ex: thumb to pinky - z, thumb to ring - x, thumb to middle - y It seemed pretty pointless to me. That's the Finger Dexterity Test. That is another dated and obscure test rarely in use today. One of the better tests, IMO. |
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the portable breath test. Here in Maine (and in many other states) a PBT is not accurate enough or monitored closely enough to be used as definitive evidence in a criminal trial. They usually sit in a case in a patrol car, are whipped out, and blown into. There is usually no routine maintenance, no formal testing procedure, etc etc. That all adds up to reasonable doubt and no conviction. So in that case the PBT isn't really that important at all, just another test to do after the FSTs but before the real BAC check at the station? Nope. If you use a PBT in Maine you run the risk of getting the entire drunk driving charge tossed out. Giving a PBT at the outset of a stop and seeing a number can be prejudicial for the officer administering the other sobriety tests. Think about it....if I see a .10 on the PBT before I do any FSTs, I am not going to give much creedence to the FSTs, because I already "know" you are a .10. gotcha. Can I assume that this varies by state? On a couple episodes of "Cops" i've seen the officer whip out the PBT right after he suspected intoxication, but of course that's just a TV show so I don't know how much credibility to give it. It varies from state to state. I have heard that in some states a PBT is good enough for an arrest and conviction. That could just be rumor though. |
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I can't do it sober. ETA: as far as I know it is not used here. |
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No, its not part of the Standardized Field Sobriety test. Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, Walk and Turn, and One-Leg stand, are the three test that are used during standardized field sobriety testing..I prefere to use the word demonstration in place of the word test when writing my DUI arrest reports ..... This is the correct answer. SFST is the gold standard. I am not familiar with word demo or word test, we never did that. We would also ask the subject to close their eyes, tip the head back and observe the amount of front to back and side to side sway. Had plenty of folks almost drop at this point... -Z "Standard" FST will vary from state to state. Maybe for the newer guys HGN is standard coming out of the basic school, but it wasn't when I went through. I use walk and turn, finger to nose and a modified alphabet, plus the alcosensor, which is just another FST and has no bearing in court. The question about Breathalyzers being off.....thats not correct. You might have a difference between a breath and blood test done on teh same guy because the BAC was going up or down between tests. Oh, and the "Breathalyzer" itself as a name brand piece of equipment has been out of service for a decade now in a lot of places. |
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Trying to catch up. PBT not admissable, IMO a crutch for certain officers weak in doing FST's. PBT has no time line because results are not admissable in court. Officer must observe suspect for at least 20 minutes before doing Draeger or Intox 5000 etc. for BAC goes to court.
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