Atlanta Field Sobriety Tests
Georgia POST Certified Police Officers are trained on the (NHTSA) – National Highway Traffic Safety Administration standardized field sobriety testing (SFST) evaluations. The three standardized field sobriety tests are:
(1) The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus,In addition to these Standardized Field Sobriety Evaluations, Police Officers also commonly use field sobriety tests that are not standardized:
(2) The Walk and Turn, and
(3) The One Leg Stand
Alphabet Test
In this evaluation, the officer will ask you to say the alphabet or some portion of the alphabet. Commonly the officer will ask you to refrain from singing the alphabet when saying it as well. There are a lot of factors that can effect your performance on this evaluation besides alcohol. Fatigue, stress, age, fear, and weather conditions can affect your performance. Additionally, there are no studies that link inability to say your alphabet with intoxication.
Finger to Nose Test
In this test, the Police Officer will ask you to extend your arms to the side forming a “T”. The officer will then ask you to touch the tip of your index finger to your nose as instructed and will alternate the hands with which he wants you to perform this task. Again as in the alphabet test other factors such as weather, fatigue, age, fear, and stress can cause poor performance on this test.
Rhomberg Test
As more and more Georgia Police Officer attend DRE training, the Rhomberg (or Modified Rhomberg) is becoming more popular. Again there has been no correlation between observations made by police officers using the Rhomberg Test and Impairment. In this test, the driver stands, feet together, and leans the head back to look up at the sky while holding their arms out to the side. The Police Officer then asks the driver to close his eyes and to estimate the passage of 30 seconds. Here the police officer looks for eyelid tremors, inability to estimate the passage of time, and swaying by the driver.
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