Standardized field sobriety test administration and accuracy in Texas

¶ … Standard Field Sobriety Test

Evaluation case study: Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFST)

One of the most important aspects of effective highway safety patrolling is the administration of Standardized Field Sobriety Tests, which are used to measure a driver's blood alcohol and ability to operate a motor vehicle safely. Reaction (Level 1), Learning (Level 2), Behavior (Level 3), and Results (Level 4) are critical steps in evaluating a policing program. SFST tests must be accurate and accurately administered to ensure that intoxicated drivers are not driving on the road. The tests must also be designed to not unfairly penalize or inconvenience sober drivers due to circumstances beyond their control. Finally, to ensure that the evidence gathered through SFST is admissible in a court of law, SFST must be compliant with all relevant statutes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administrations (NHTSA) has created a Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFST) course to enhance state police force's ability to detect impaired drivers. However, despite the presence of such a course, the number of reported SFST-trained officers administering the SFSTs in an incorrect fashion has increased in Texas, as has the number of successful challenges to the admissibility the tests in court. Sadly, the number of impaired drivers involved in fatal collisions has similarly increased.

Reaction: Level 1

The initial SFST training course in Texas is a 24-hour curriculum used to provide officers with a guide to deploy the most widely-accepted tests of sobriety for drivers. To measure the competency level of SFST-trained officers in Texas, officers were randomly selected to complete a program assessment. The duration between the training and the time of the assessment and the officer's level of achievement and competency rating was noted as part of the evaluation. The ability of officers to use SFSTs effectively is a critical component to their widespread acceptance, hence the need for routine evaluations of training curricula. For example, in nearby New Mexico v. Lasworth (2001), the New Mexico Supreme Court held the sobriety tests used were inadmissible because that the ways they were administered in the field did not meet accepted standards of scientific evidence. It is not enough for officers to simply attempt to get DWIs off the road, rather officers must ensure that the test results admissible in court, given the dim view expressed of the tests in many courts of law in many states of the land.

The officer's reaction to or self-perception of competency and the value of the training course is not assessed after the program. While the curriculum is supposed to be delivered in a consistent and standardized manner, gaining a sense of how different officers perceive its relevance and efficacy in their work is essential: the instructors must be able to communicate the seriousness of the material, and then to see if the 'audience' reaction to the presentation is positive. Officers should also be asked, after their training, as to how the training has been helpful or unhelpful in their work on a routine basis, ideally at six-month follow-up intervals.

As part of an evaluation study, SFST practitioners were initially asked to complete a SFST Competency Assessment, which included a series of background and attitude-related questions. This preceded the administration of the SFSTs and the scoring of a videotaped illustration of an individual performing a SFST battery. However, such assessments of efficacy should become a routine (anonymous) part of the follow-up testing as well, to ascertain on a regular basis the morale of officers about their training. One positive aspect of the initial study was that officers seem to perceive that assessment of inebriation levels is a serious matter, even if they do not always administer tests accurately, and do not seem to give adequate weight to the importance of testing in a manner to ensure that the SFST will be admissible in court.

Learning: Level 2

Strictly speaking, the NHTSA-SFST course is not mandatory. And evidence indicates that officers who do not frequently use their knowledge may very quickly forget the specifics of the material, given the frequently wide gaps between initial training and retraining. Additionally, scientific knowledge about the best ways to assess drunk drivers, and levels of alcohol consumption at which individuals can become impaired may change fairly quickly. The law may also change in terms of how it penalizes drunk driving, and the levels of expected scrupulousness of officers may alter state-to-state and nationwide.

One solution to enhance learning might be to require that all officers take the initial course and to then develop online content for 'follow-up' briefings and re-testing of knowledge every six months. This would be more rigorous than the current method of having refresher courses every three years. The frequency of the retraining would reinforce the seriousness of the issue.

While it is true that there is an optional SFST update course to be taken within six months, the course is not mandatory. While an SFST instructor must supervise the SFST practitioner administering the SFSTs' in initial administration, the 35 test cases within six months of the initial training that the officer must complete are not supervised and thus there is no ongoing feedback during the course, limiting its effectiveness. Feedback is an essential component of learning -- in the classroom and in the field.

Level 4: Results

Tracking SFST results statistically for officers as a whole, and officers in different departments and with different levels of experience; tracking officers who do and do not do follow-up courses; tracking night vs. day shift officers would all provide valuable information as to what characteristics and experiences reinforce the principles of effective training. This would also enable the departments and types of officers found to be particularly lacking to be targeted for mandatory retraining.

Filming officer interactions with suspected DUIs and DWIs with police car 'cameras' for training purposes would enable officer behavior in the real world to be assessed. So long as such videos were used for training purposes alone, and not in a punitive fashion, this could be a valuable wake-up call for officers who were either apparently failing to spot DWIs or not adhering to required legal procedures. Finally, routinely reviewing the actual components of DWI testing in a scientific and empiric manner, and having officers shadowed by trainers to assess their 'in the field' actions followed by a debriefing is perhaps the most effective method of testing knowledge. This 'shadowing' method provides mentorship and specific, tailored advice in a manner that is useful for individual officers. The one-on-one nature of such assessment reinforces learning in an emotional as well as an intellectual fashion through direct contact with a fellow officer. By introducing such components into the training and post-training, some of which have been deployed in other states such as Colorado and North Carolina, Texas should be able to improve its efficacy ratings state-wide and silence criticism about using SFST.