At the recent “DWI Means Defend with Ingenuity” conference in Las Vegas, one of the sessions focused on ARIDE officers – those officers trained in Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement. These officers receive specialized training to identify drivers who may be impaired by drugs or alcohol. It’s considered advanced training for field sobriety testing, going beyond the standard SFSTs that most officers use.
ARIDE officers are trained to administer several psychophysical tests, including the Walk and Turn, One Leg Stand, Finger to Nose, and the Modified Romberg Balance test (MRB). The MRB is one of the more unusual ones—it involves a person tilting their head back, closing their eyes, and estimating 30 seconds. According to NHTSA, a “good” performance is within five seconds of the 30-second mark, but interestingly, this test isn’t supported by solid research.
Another part of ARIDE training involves recognizing possible signs of drug use by looking at a person’s pupils. Officers are told that dilation can indicate stimulants, hallucinogens, or THC, while constricted pupils might suggest narcotics. Still, this kind of observation is far from scientific and can easily be influenced by other factors like lighting or medical conditions.
The Finger to Nose test is another frequently used roadside test. During training, officers must demonstrate the test twice, using the correct hand each time and touching the tip of the nose with the tip of the finger before returning their hand down. They’re trained to look for up to six possible mistakes per instruction—meaning a person could be marked for as many as 24 “errors” during the test.
What’s most notable is that ARIDE officers, by their own training, aren’t qualified to say exactly what substance someone is on. They can say it’s not alcohol, but they can’t claim, for example, that someone is definitely under the influence of marijuana. For most of the roadside tests used by ARIDE officers, there is no true scoring criteria. Everything that an ARIDE officer provides is his opinion, based strictly on the ARIDE training.
All of this raises some important questions about how much weight should really be given to these roadside evaluations. The training is extensive, but the science behind some of the tests is shaky at best. Factors like nerves, fatigue, or simple misunderstanding of instructions can easily make a sober person appear impaired. While ARIDE officers play a role in identifying potential impairment, their observations are still largely subjective. It’s a reminder that these tests are tools—not proof—and that real evidence should come from objective, scientifically supported methods rather than quick roadside judgments.
