This article has some excellent advice. Be polite and respectful to the police officer but stand up for your rights. Even if you are stone-cold sober, you should always refuse a field sobriety test or a Breathalyzer. A nervous person could fail a field sobriety test and a Breathalyzer can easily produce a false positive and this would be very difficult to beat in court, especially with so many knee-jerk people prejudiced like you.
You will lose your license if you refuse the breathalyzer at the station but not if you refuse the field sobriety tests. Best advice other than not drinking at all is to follow the speed limit and not to drive with your brights on at night.
I wouldn’t advise refusing the field sobriety test, unless you knew with certainty what the laws in your state were.
I’ve been pulled over for DUI. I had half a beer at a bar...and the police were staking out the parking lot. I actually saw them, and knew what they were up to...and still proceeded to get in my car and start it - thinking I had nothing to worry about. Their pretense for pulling me over was a license plate light that was burnt out.
The half beer was on my breath, so the officer stated that he suspected I was impaired. So the told me to say (not sing) the alphabet, and stop at ‘P’. I did this, fairly flawlessly in my opinion.
But it apparently wasn’t good enough. So I had to do this thing where I touched my fingers to my thumb, in succession, and counted ‘1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1’. IMHO, I did this task better than the cop who demonstrated it. I should mention that the cop was a ‘trainee’, and another cop was giving him instructions on what to do. He was more nervous than me...amd I really do believe I did this task better than him.
They say I’m good to go, and write me up a warning for the light....but then they do a little conference and ask me to get out of the car. Its breathalyzer time.
The instructor cop helps the trainee load it with a straw like device; and, they have me blow. They didn’t like the result, so they had me blow again. They actually looked quite puzzled....I wish I had asked what I was blowing...they didn’t tell me - but they sent me on my way.
I violated just about all of the instructions on this list...but I think that is how I would handle it, if it ever happened again.