The Walk and Turn Test

When the police administer the Walk and Turn test, they are attempting to evaluate a person's divided attention. That is, it is generally accepted that driving a car, though on the surface appears to be very simple, is a divded attention task. Divided attention means that a person's attention is not focused solely on driving. When a person drives a vehicle his or her attention is focused on driving, keeping his or her eyes on the road, accelerating or braking, monitoring on-coming traffic, monitoring traffic in front of and behind of his or her car, among many other things.

It is generally accepted that alcohol diminishes a person's ability to divide his or her attention safely. The logic goes that because alcohol diminishes a person's divided attention skills, his or her ability to drive safely is drastically diminished. The Walk and Turn and One Leg Stand test are used to test a person's divided attention. If he or she is unable to perform well on these tests, then the police officer and jury will infer that the person's ability to operate a motor vehicle was impaired because of alcohol.

If you or a loved one have been charged with DWI, contact a Plano DWI lawyer today.