Walk a straight line. Stand on one leg. Follow a pen with your eyes. Most people picture these exercises as some kind of objective measurement — pass or fail, sober or not. In reality, field sobriety tests are a lot more subjective than the officer administering them makes them look, and a lot of what determines whether someone "passes" depends on factors that have nothing to do with alcohol.
These tests were never meant to stand alone
Field sobriety tests are a tool officers use to build reasonable suspicion or probable cause for a DUI arrest — they're an observation exercise, not a chemical measurement like a breath or blood test. That distinction matters. An officer's real-time judgment of whether someone's performance on a balance-and-coordination exercise, conducted on the side of a road, indicates impairment is inherently more subjective than a number on a breathalyzer.
Plenty of things affect these tests besides alcohol
I've reviewed the video from a lot of traffic stops, and the same issues come up again and again — none of them related to drinking:
- The surface and conditions. Uneven pavement, gravel shoulders, wind, and poor lighting all affect balance and coordination, sober or not.
- Footwear. High heels, work boots, and sandals aren't designed for a heel-to-toe walking exercise.
- Age, weight, and physical conditions. Inner ear issues, prior injuries, and even normal nervousness can look like impairment to an officer trained to spot certain cues.
- Anxiety about being pulled over. Being stopped by police, at night, on camera, with an officer watching your every move, makes plenty of stone-sober people nervous and clumsy.
- How the instructions were given. If the officer's instructions weren't clear, or weren't given the way the test is designed to be administered, the results are less meaningful — but that's not always obvious just from watching the stop.
What actually gets challenged in these cases
- Whether the test was administered correctly. These exercises follow specific procedures, and officers don't always follow them precisely.
- Whether the officer's scoring matches what the video actually shows. Body camera and dash camera footage sometimes tell a different story than the officer's report.
- Whether conditions at the scene undermined the test's reliability — the surface, the lighting, the weather, all of it.
- How the field sobriety results connect to everything else in the case. These tests are rarely the only evidence — but they're often treated as more conclusive than they actually are.
Why this matters whether or not you were tested at all
I wrote previously about what implied consent actually requires, and field sobriety tests raise a similar point: a poor performance on a roadside exercise, or an officer's account of one, isn't automatically the end of the story. These tests can be challenged like any other piece of evidence in a DUI case.
I look closely at how these stops actually went
A DUI arrest built partly on field sobriety performance deserves a close look at the video, the conditions, and the procedure — not an assumption that the officer's account is the final word. A firm voted Best of Omaha for personal injury law in 2025 and 2026, backed by countless five-star client reviews and peer endorsements, got there by treating every case, including DUI matters, with that same level of scrutiny.
Call me at (402) 378-9208 or reach out here as soon as possible after a DUI stop or arrest — the sooner I can review the video and the stop, the more options are usually on the table.