Field evaluation of a behavioral test battery for DWI: NHTSA technical note

Anderson, Theodore E.; Schweitz, Robert M.; Snyder, Monroe B.

doi:10.1037/e486392008-001

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…The questions examine the circumstances that led to interception of the driver and the driver's recent history of illness, injury, medical treatment, and drug use is documented. The PIT administered as part of the SIA are based on the standardized field sobriety tests that have been validated in the United States by the Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Burns and Moskowitz, 1977;Tharp et al, 1981;Anderson et al, 1983). The three validated performance tests-the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test, the Walk and Turn test, and the One Leg Stand test-when administered by trained practitioners in a systematic and standardized manner enable an officer to identify impairment at a level equivalent to impairment observed at a .05% or above blood alcohol concentration (Burns and Anderson, 1995).…”

Section: Procedures Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Victorian Legislative Framework for Testing Drivers for Impairment Caused by Drugs Other than Alcohol: An Evaluation of the Characteristics of Drivers Detected from 2000 to 2005

Boorman

Papafotiou

2007

Traffic Injury Prevention

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On December 1, 2000, new legislation came into force in Victoria, Australia, that involved a framework for the procedure to be followed by the police for the detection of drivers impaired by drugs other than alcohol. An integral part of the procedure is the use of performance tests known as the standardized field sobriety tests (SFSTs) and the analysis of blood samples for the presence of drugs other than alcohol. This paper outlines the new legislative framework and the drug impairment detection procedures currently in place in Victoria. This paper also evaluates the data collected using the framework for the first five years since implementation in Victoria.

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Section: Procedures Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Victorian Legislative Framework for Testing Drivers for Impairment Caused by Drugs Other than Alcohol: An Evaluation of the Characteristics of Drivers Detected from 2000 to 2005

Boorman

Papafotiou

2007

Traffic Injury Prevention

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“…The fact is that intoxicated individuals are often not good estimators of their own impairment (e.g., Maisto & Adesso, 1977;Russ, Harwood, & Geller, 1986), and sober individuals are even worse at judging the alcohol impairment of others (Langenbucher & Nathan, 1983). To overcome this problem, standardized performance test batteries have been developed for use in the field by trained police officers (Anderson, Schweitz, & Snyder, 1983;Burns & Moskowitz, 1977); an 11-item "Alcohol Symptom Checklist" was designed to estimate alcohol impairment among clients in a hospital emergency room (Teplin & Lutz, 1985); sobriety tests have been adapted for use in party settings Streffet al, 1989). Although these assessment tools increase the accuracy of intoxication judgments substantially, there are a number of critical drawbacks to their use, induding the need for special training on test administration and the time and inconvenience in applying a sobriety checklist or performance test.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowing When to Say When: A Simple Assessment of Alcohol Impairment

Geller

Clarke

Kalsher

1991

J of App Behav Analysis

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The use of writing samples as indices of alcohol impairment was explored. Students at a campus fraternity party wrote a sentence and their signatures before and after consuming alcohol (in beer and mixed drinks). Later, undergraduate and graduate students attempted to discriminate between pre- and postparty handwriting samples. The average percentage of correct discriminations of entrance and exit writing samples was 83.7% for sentences and 67.5% for signatures, and the percentage of correct discriminations increased directly with the blood alcohol concentration of the partier who gave the writing sample. When a partier's blood alcohol concentration reached 0.15, all of the judges accurately discriminated 90% or more of the sentences, and 25 of the 28 judges correctly discriminated at least 80% of the signatures. All of the judges correctly discriminated at least 90% of the 18 sentences written by partiers with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.12 or more. Implications of these findings for reducing the risk of driving while intoxicated are discussed, as well as directions for follow-up research.

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“…Giguire (1983) reported an unusually high false positive rate (.77) for HGN and poor sensitivities for Walk and Turn and One Leg Stand (both .50). Anderson et al (1983) utilized data from the 1981 NHTSA laboratory study to establish cut-off scores for each test and created a decision rubric for combinations of HGN and Walk and Turn scores. Using this template and the Tharp et al data, the authors reported 80% correct classification of subjects of above or below .10% BAC.…”

Section: Review Of the Empirical Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The standardized field sobriety tests: A review of scientific and legal issues.

Rubenzer¹

2008

Law and Human Behavior

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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.

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Field evaluation of a behavioral test battery for DWI: NHTSA technical note

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

The Victorian Legislative Framework for Testing Drivers for Impairment Caused by Drugs Other than Alcohol: An Evaluation of the Characteristics of Drivers Detected from 2000 to 2005

The Victorian Legislative Framework for Testing Drivers for Impairment Caused by Drugs Other than Alcohol: An Evaluation of the Characteristics of Drivers Detected from 2000 to 2005

Knowing When to Say When: A Simple Assessment of Alcohol Impairment

The standardized field sobriety tests: A review of scientific and legal issues.

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