[Weedy1]

Originally Posted by WSMLEO

Field sobriety tests in Alberta are only used for drug impaired driving, not alcohol. With alcohol it stays the same in that if an officer has reasonable and probable grounds to arrest you for impaired driving by alcohol, they will and then you are taken to give breath samples. If officers have reasonable suspicion that you are driving and that you have alcohol in your body (pretty low threshold to meet), they can demand a breath sample into a screening device. Based on the results of the screening device, they may develop grounds to believe you are impaired and arrest you and take you to get evidentiary breath samples. The only thing changing with this is that after December 18, officers no longer need to develop reasonable suspicion and can demand a sample into a screening device from anyone driving.


As far as any fears of getting charged with impaired for having bad balance, this would not happen. Like with alcohol screening devices, in order to conduct field sobriety tests on somebody, Police need reasonable suspicion that a person is driving after consuming a drug. This is not changing after December 18 and Police will continue to have to meet this threshold prior to doing field sobriety tests. As a result, Police will already have a nexus of some sort to a drug prior to doing a sobriety test ( person is driving and was observed smoking a joint or maybe a person is stopped and police find a crack pipe with indicia of recent use in the driver's pocket.


If a person fails the field sobriety test, they are then evaluated by a drug recognition expert. If after this evaluation, the DRE believes the person is impaired by a drug, Police may demand blood. The blood is drawn and the person is released without charges. Once the blood tests come back, if the results confirm the presence of the drug suspected by the DRE, the person is then charged with drug impaired driving.

As you can see, there is no way you could get charged for simply having bad balance or simply doing poorly on the field sobriety tests.

As of December 18 will people be legally required to perform a field sobriety test or blow into an roadside alcohol screening device or could they just opt out and ask to be tested at a police station?