Remember the officers from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission who took it upon themselves to arrest bar customers who the agents thought had had a drink too many — even if the drinkers weren't causing trouble and had no intention to drink and drive? (The program was suspended following a public outcry.)
The patrons were subjected, it turns out, to field sobriety tests — stand on one leg, touch your nose with your index finger, count back from one thousand, etc. The tests are something of a scam, notes the Agitator:
Last fall, the Washington Post looked into the history of those tests, tracing them back to a single, unscientific 1977 study of 238 poorly-sampled students. The woman who created that study managed to sell NHTSA on its merits, and has since made a bundle as it has been adopted by police departments across the country. The Post administered the tests to a sampling of stone-sober pedestrians in D.C., and found many of them failed. That would have been enough to get those people arrested in Texas for public intoxication.
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