When other countries (notably Europe) use roadside ‘Breathalyzer’ test machines? It seems a high-functioning drunk could get away with DUI in the US, when they wouldn’t in France or the UK?
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In most (maybe all?) US states you need what is called ‘probable cause’ to insist on a breathalyzer. Police cannot set up a checkpoint and make people breathe into a tube in order to get through, nor can they breathalyze every person they pull over. They can suggest it, or ask, but you are allowed to say no. Once they feel they have established their probable cause in a way that can legally proven later, you can be penalized for not taking the test — at that point refusal to take it all counts as failure.
Field sobriety tests are a way for the officer to film / document your inebriated behavior so that they have demonstrable probable cause to arrest you or force you to take the actual test — the motivation for the inebriated person being that they think they can get out of it by doing well at the test, which they mostly can’t.
It’s a series of steps taken to ensure that there is no (yeah right) chance that the case against the driver will be dismissed.
You can blow a 1.0 BAC and apart from being entirely dead, get your case dismissed if the court deems that the test was applied unlawfully. So we have a whole song and dance to try to prevent that.
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