Don't be a quitter

That's not how field sobriety tests work, because they don't actually work at all, they're just a way to give cops a justification for their suspicions without conducting an actually functional test.
- "Come on, officer, I couldn't do that even if I was sober!"
- It still blows my mind that they're apparently commonly used in the US instead of breathalysers like everywhere else.
  Of course they're also using polygraph tests. So at least they're consistent in using shit testing methods.
  
  At least polys can't be used in court. I'd imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for a lawyer to get things tossed if their only rationale was a poly test.
- So if someone is clearly high and they blow a 0 on a breathalyzer should cops just let them go? Run a blood sample on the side of the road? Or should they just arrest them based on nothing more than "I believe they were impaired." At least a field sobriety test tries to provide an objective standard.

Why don't American cops have breathalyzers in the car and instead elect to do this interpretive dance on the side of the road?
- That's the weird thing, they do. And if they're asking you to do field sobriety tests they're 100% going to breathalyze you too
  
  Dance monkey. How dare you not know the alphabet back to front?
- The roadside field sobriety test exists purely for the cop (s) to claim they saw further evidence you were intoxicated or under the influence and can be refused in most of not all states. It is never going to prove you are sober and is not in anyone's best interests except the cop's; check your state laws and never consent to the sobriety tests.
  Similarly, the hand held portable breathalyzer can be refused in most of not all states, but if they (cop) decide to arrest you and bring you to the station then refusing the calibrated breathalyzer test machine (or blood or urine tests in some cases) there typically is worded as an admission of guilt in many states. Check your state laws and never agree to any breathalyzer unless doing so explicitly results in license forfeiture or implied admission of guilt. Even then, it may still be in a person's best interests to refuse.
  
  There’s this show On Patrol Live where they follow cops around with a camera. I see plenty of them arrest people for refusing to do the test. That leads me to believe it’s more common than what you are suggesting above. (I.e. refusing isn’t that great of an option either.) But as you say, check your local laws.
  
  Refusing isn't an admission of guilt. You agree to submit to a chemical test in order to have a driver's license. The calibrated instruments are considered evidentiary tests, so refusal of either a blood or calibrated breath test results in an immediate revocation of your license, it's unrelated to whether or not you were sober.
  The handheld devices can only provide probable cause to the officer, and they're usually ripped apart in court. They also only work with alcohol, so if there are any other drugs involved, they need to do a SFST anyway.
  
  If you are actually sober why on earth would you not take a breathalyzer test. There may be some slight inaccuracies but you are NEVER going to blow over the limit unless you've been drinking. I could see MAYBE refusing a test if you think you are close to the legal limit but that's your problem for drinking and driving.
- They have them and can do both. I think field sobriety tests might be more common these days if they suspect you're on something other than alcohol though.
- They do. Cops in America just want to jerk you around. People elect to participate because refusing usually means being detained and taken for chemical testing. Breathalyzers and roadside sobriety field tests dont work consistently and can be bypassed easily.
- The handheld ones can't be used as evidence in most jurisdictions. SFSTs can be.
  
  It's wild to think a machine which is built to detect alcohol in your breath is less reliable than a human interpreting the dance of another human. "The breathalyzer showed 0.07 but I let them do the dance and it looked more like a 0.09 to me, so I took them in."
  And for anyone claiming other substances will not show in a breathalyzer but the dancing. That's what swab tests are for. Collect sample, let chemicals do their thing and decide on wether the indicator turned red or green, with way less interpretation needed than an arbitrary dance.
  
  It's the same here. When someone tests positive they're brought back to the station to a machine that's actually calibrated and can be used as evidence (sometimes it's in the back of the van if they're doing a lot of testing, but it's not carried in a car).
- Breathalyzers won't catch other forms of impairment like benzos, narcotics etc

Why did they have to use a pic with a horse in it? Seems distracting.
- It made me think the man was caught riding the horse like this:

...it can be
casually pushes a $1 bill forward...eh?

It is how being a cop works in the US, if you shoot an innocent terrified black man, well maybe you switch departments but you get back on your feet, hide the racism from the media interviews and keep climbing the cop ladder!

The mystique Americans have built around checking whether someone is drunk is so weird to me.
Over here you take a breath test. It's not optional. You breathe into the tube and either carry on or get fined and sleep it off before moving on.
I understand that there is some weird hangup about compulsory checks in the US for some reason, as part of the weirdo libertarian nonsense they huff over there, but I've never understood the logic of how spending fifteen minutes having a cop decide whether they want to shoot you is the better alternative.
- Normally breathalyzer is the first thing they ask from you. If you are actually sober, and you refuse that test and then you fail a field sobriety test that's completely on you. I don't see how the right to refuse the breathalyzer test is the problem here.
  
  I don't get it. There is a test that takes ten seconds blowing into a tube. Why is "the right to refuse the breathalyzer" a thing? What's the point if you're still going to get tested in a less accurate way that takes longer? What right or freedom is being preserved there other than the right to waste everybody's time and risk a worse outcome? Why does it matter if it's "on you"? There are other people involved, from the cop performing the test to whoever else needs to get stopped or tested after you to potentially the public interest of not having drunk drivers zooming around. Why is it "being on you" relevant?
  It's mostly trivial, but man, it is such a microcosm of weird-ass American/anarchocapitalist thinking about public/private interactions.

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