Standard Field Sobriety Test Evaluation

¶ … 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 3: Behavior

While Levels 1 and 2 are problematic in the current evaluation of the training course, even more serious is the inconsistent behavior on the part of officers. It has been surmised that some officers have more contact with DWIs more than others. Officers who work days with little DWI contact or who have never had SFSTs thrown out of court because of improper administration may be less competent at administering and less scrupulous in their administration of the test, when called upon to do so during an program assessment. An examination of how material is transmitted through SFST training indicates while it may touch upon the necessary bullet points required to satisfy the law, the curriculum design does not use effective learning and teaching methods to facilitate retention, particularly if experience does not act as reinforcement.

The most behavior-based part of the administration of the SFSTs involved the scoring of a videotaped illustration of an individual performing the SFST battery. However, the Texas Impaired Driving Advisory Board at the 8th Annual Alcohol, Drugs, and Impaired Driving Conference in Plano, Texas, said this was an insufficiently hands-on approach. Watching a video is not the same as an 'in the field' assessment, and more behavior-based assessments, such as reenactments of DWI tests, might be a better way to improve retention. An increase in hands-on training and observation is essential. After all, no officer would feel competent watching a video, when learning how to handle a firearm.

Having actors to come in and simulate various types of physical intoxication would be a kind of 'residency' for the officers, much as medical students often interact with actors simulating illnesses. While this would not be a perfect recreation of the effects of intoxication on eye movements and all biological aspects of drunkenness, being graded on how officers administer DWI tests to real people would still enhance officer education.