Question: How can I politely refuse the field sobriety tests if an officer asks me to perform them?
Answer: Actually on the back of our business card, it says that I’m refusing to do all of these things politely, so you know, if it was one of our clients, they would hand them our business card and the back of it, it basically says everything. You hand them your license and registration and that’s it. Absent you having that, the best way to do it is just tell the officer that you’re not complying with their field sobriety tests, but that you’ll cooperate with anything else that they ask to do. Really what you need to do is just hand them your license and registration and, you know, they’ll ask you if you’re going to take the tests, you politely—you want to be kind to them, but no matter what, when you refuse their tests, they’re going to get a little testy.
And that’s what they, you know, they’re going to get frustrated because they realize that the person knows what they’re doing. So, it’s not an easy thing to refuse the tests. When asked by a police officer I think everyone’s first instinct would be to do what the police officer says, but there really isn’t a polite way. You just, you know, don’t want to do it indignantly—you just want to tell them, “I’m not going to take your tests.” I mean, that’s really the easiest way to go about it.