Re: Springsteen, 72. NHTSA manual says field sobriety tests weren't designed for people over 60. [View all]

[pnwmom]

Normal aging processes can make it difficult to stand on one leg or walk a straight line, among other things.

The more I think about his case (being arrested because a cop in a park saw him accept a shot of Tequila from a fan, and then sit on his motorcycle, and prepare to leave), the madder I get. Whoever heard of someone being arrested with a .02 blood alcohol?

https://www.post-gazette.com/business/legal/2011/04/18/Sobriety-test-result-tossed-out-due-to-age/stories/201104180130

Citing a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration manual and a 2002 Superior Court decision, President Judge Dominick Motto ruled that the test, as it applied to Danniel Weaver, was "unreliable."

"It is questionable that the one-leg test should have been administered to Ms. Weaver at all because Ms. Weaver was nearing the age of 60 at the time, and the NHTSA manual says field sobriety tests 'were not designed for persons over 60 years old,' " Judge Motto wrote.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10979-007-9111-y

Original Article
Published: 06 October 2007

The Standardized Field Sobriety Tests: A Review of Scientific and Legal Issues

Abstract

This article details the history and development of the National Highway and Safety Administration’s Standardized Field Sobriety Tests. They are reviewed in terms of relevant scientific, psychometric, and legal issues. It is concluded that the research that supports their use is limited, important confounding variables have not been thoroughly studied, reliability is mediocre, and that their developers and prosecution-oriented publications have oversold the tests. Further, case law since their development has severed the tests from their validation data, so that they are not admissible on the criterion for which they were validated (blood alcohol concentration), and admissible for a criterion for which they were not (mental, physical, or driving impairment). Directions for further research are presented.