Research & Studies
Guide for Detecting Drunk Drivers at Night
NHTSA · 187 KB
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Guide for Detecting Drunk Drivers at Night is a NHTSA's training manual setting out the standards the officer was taught to follow. It documents the underlying science on alcohol, drugs, driving performance, and the detection cues officers are trained to use. Because it is the government's own source material, it sets the standard a DUI case can be measured against — not a standard the defense invented.
What this document establishes
It sets out the underlying science on alcohol, drugs, driving performance, and the detection cues officers are trained to use. As primary-source material, it lets you compare what actually happened in a case against the written standard, rather than relying on how the procedure is described in court.
How it's used in a DUI defense
The research library frames the science for the fact-finder — how weak an individual driving cue actually is (with the government's own stated probabilities), how impairment correlates and doesn't with a given BAC, and where checkpoint and detection methods fall short. It is the primary-source counterweight to the courtroom shorthand that treats every cue and every reading as conclusive.
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