Roadside Maneuvers | Video Transcript

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GRAPHIC: Moran & Heim P.C. Attorneys at Law 866.919.3692 or 719.387.0427

MICHAEL MORAN: I think you should pull over immediately, hand the officer your driver's license, registration, et cetera. If you have been drinking, don't volunteer any information. They only thing that you're required to do under Colorado law, if the officer suspects that you're DUI is to perform a chemical test. You're not required to answer statements. You're not required to do the roadside maneuvers. You're only required to give a blood or breath test.

I think personally, Geoff my partner also thinks personally that you should give a breath test rather than a blood test. Why is that so? There's more likely to be an error in the breath test than there is in the blood test.

The roadside maneuvers are delineated in a manual called the NHTSA manual, and that's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that delineates three standard roadsides that an officer will ask you if you will perform voluntarily. The word voluntary is the key because you are not required under Colorado to do those. You have to submit to them voluntarily. So the key word is voluntary. You're not required to do them.

But let's say that you do do them. Those are usually three tests. That's the horizontal gaze nystagmus, the walk and turn, and the one-legged stand. However, I think it's also important to realize as soon as the officer pulls you over, he's looking for observations that, that may lead him to suspect DUI; leaning on the car for balance, slurred speech, bloodshot, watery eyes.

And of course there's a myriad of things that may explain those, but each one of those lead an officer to believe that you're under the influence of alcohol, thus giving him the ability to require you to take a chemical test.

GRAPHIC: Moran & Heim P.C. Attorneys at Law 866.919.3692 or 719.387.0427