Field sobriety exercises — design · Florida
How do field sobriety exercises work?
With Sabrina Jadunandan, Orlando DUI defense attorneyDuration 0:53Reviewed 2026-08-07
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Why are field sobriety exercises designed the way they are?
They are built to divide your attention. Driving requires you to look, listen, and decide at the same time, and the exercises are designed to emulate that attention-dividing demand — doing several things at once, correctly, on instruction. That is why the tasks feel awkward even sober. Officers use performance on those tasks as one tool inside a DUI investigation, which is why the way instructions are given and scored matters so much to a defense.
What this video covers
- The attention-dividing rationale
- How the tasks mirror driving
- Where the exercises fit in a DUI investigation
Full transcript
woop one. It's Sabrina, the DUI gal, your favorite defense attorney and a new year, new office, new videos. Now, as you know, I'm the DUI gal. I'm here to talk to you about everything DUI and, you know, crime because it's fun. And today I want to talk to you about field sobriety exercises and why do we even have them. I'll let you in on a little industry secret. The reason why the field sobriety exercises are the way they are is because they're supposed to emulate the attention dividing task of driving. So if you think about it, when you're driving, you have to look around, you have to be able to hear, you have to be able to make decisions as you're driving. Same thing with field sobriety exercises. You're supposed to be able to do multiple things at once successfully because that's what you need to do when you're driving and it's a tool that officers use in their DUI investigation.
Florida law and sources
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