This is a fascinating discussion. It brings to mind a question posed by a defense expert during the Frye-Mack hearing to determine whether the DRE protocol should be permitted in Minnesota, which was "What is the prevalence of impaired drivers at the time a particular driving stop is made?" The expert opined that without knowing the prevalence one cannot determine how effective the DRE protocol is. It seems to me that the same question applies to Standardized Field Sobriety Testing, with an additional question I gleaned Dr Rauchman: "What is the prevalence within the sober population of individuals who would "fail" the tests?"
Absolutley Glenn! Without knowing background rates, we have no idea how good the test is. A few things stand out to me. In Burns study on the Robustness of HGN, >50% of the subjects failed the HGN who were below 0.08%. Same with the study by Good, although they used .10 as a marker. When you have such high false positive rates, the test becomes meaningless.
This is a fascinating discussion. It brings to mind a question posed by a defense expert during the Frye-Mack hearing to determine whether the DRE protocol should be permitted in Minnesota, which was "What is the prevalence of impaired drivers at the time a particular driving stop is made?" The expert opined that without knowing the prevalence one cannot determine how effective the DRE protocol is. It seems to me that the same question applies to Standardized Field Sobriety Testing, with an additional question I gleaned Dr Rauchman: "What is the prevalence within the sober population of individuals who would "fail" the tests?"
Absolutley Glenn! Without knowing background rates, we have no idea how good the test is. A few things stand out to me. In Burns study on the Robustness of HGN, >50% of the subjects failed the HGN who were below 0.08%. Same with the study by Good, although they used .10 as a marker. When you have such high false positive rates, the test becomes meaningless.