The finger to nose exercise asks you to tip your head back, close your eyes, extend your arms, and then touch the tip of your nose with the tip of your index finger when the officer names a hand. The officer watches which hand you use, whether you reach the right spot, and whether you sway or tremble. It is not one of the three standardized exercises, and under State v. Meador, 674 So. 2d 826 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996), it comes in only as the officer’s lay observation.
The first thing to understand is that there is nothing to grade against. NHTSA never validated this exercise, never published a clue list for it, and never set a pass-fail line. So when a report says you missed your nose or swayed, that is the officer’s impression, with no study behind it telling anyone what the impression is worth.
There is no NHTSA clue list and no pass-fail line here. The officer is recording impressions, and several of them are what a sober person does with eyes closed and head tilted back.
Eyes closed and head back is the problem
Closing your eyes takes away the vision you normally use to stay balanced, and tilting your head back disturbs the inner-ear signals that help too. On top of that, finding the tip of your own nose with your eyes shut relies on body position sense that is not exact in anyone. Sway, a small miss, and a backward lean are ordinary responses to that setup, not signs of a blood alcohol level. Add the cold, the dark, fatigue, nerves, and any neurological or balance condition, and the result tells you even less.
The posture removes how you stay steady
There is a physical reason this exercise is hard, and it has nothing to do with drinking. Your body keeps you upright using your eyes, your inner ear, and the sense of where your limbs are in space. This exercise closes your eyes, which takes away vision, and tips your head back, which unsettles the inner ear, so it strips away two of the three systems you rely on and then asks you to touch a moving target you cannot see. Sway and a missed nose are the expected result for almost anyone standing like that on the side of a road, and there is no validated way to score any of it, so what the officer writes down is a personal impression of a person set up to look unsteady.
NHTSA’s own training makes a concession worth holding onto here. Its manual states that a test which is difficult for a sober person to perform has little or no evidentiary value, and an unvalidated coordination task done with the eyes shut and the head back is difficult for a sober person by design, so the agency’s own words undercut the exercise before a single miss is written down.
A personal impression, not a measurement
Because there is no standardized procedure, two officers can give this exercise two different ways and score it by feel. One might call a slight miss a clue, another might not. That is the opposite of a reliable test. In your case I show the jury that the officer is describing a brief, unscientific impression of a few seconds at the roadside, formed after already deciding to investigate you, and that none of it proves impairment.
When drugs are suspected
A version of the finger to nose appears in ARIDE, the advanced course officers take to screen for drug impairment. If the officer suspected drugs in your case, the eye and drug analysis belongs in the drugged driving section rather than here, and using the exercise in a drug screen still does not give it validation it never had.
I want a jury to try to picture doing this themselves, eyes shut, head back, on gravel, with lights going by. When they do, the sway the officer wrote down stops looking like proof of anything. There is no manual and no score behind this exercise, so I show how the posture alone sets a sober person up to fail, and I do not let one officer’s impression of a hard task stand in for evidence of impairment.
I started out as an Assistant Public Defender in Florida’s Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, in Tampa, and today I am one of six ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientists in Florida and an NHTSA-qualified field sobriety instructor. I was trained to administer this battery and to teach the officers who give it, so I can stand in front of a jury and show the exact point where the roadside exercises in your case left the standard. Learn more about my background.
Questions About the Finger to Nose Test
What is the finger to nose test?
You tilt your head back, close your eyes, and touch the tip of your nose with the tip of your index finger, usually alternating hands on command. The officer watches which hand you use, whether you miss, and whether you sway or tremble.
Is finger to nose a standardized test?
No. It is not one of the three NHTSA validated exercises. There is no validation study, no official clue list, and no scoring standard, so the officer is reporting a personal impression.
Why do sober people miss?
Closing your eyes and tipping your head back removes the visual cues you use to balance and to locate your own body, so sway and small misses are normal. Nerves, cold, fatigue, and many medical and neurological conditions add to it.
Does Florida allow it?
Under State v. Meador the exercise can come in only as the officer's lay observation of how you moved, not as a scientific test, and the officer should not tell the jury you failed or scored points.
Is it used in drug cases?
A version appears in the ARIDE drug-screening course, which is why officers sometimes use it when they suspect drugs. That does not validate it, and the drug analysis itself lives in the drugged driving section.
How do you challenge it?
I point out there is no validated standard to grade against, show that eyes closed and head back make sway and misses expected, and raise any physical or medical reason the result says nothing about alcohol.
Related: the non-standardized overview, the Romberg balance estimate, medical conditions that affect the exercises, how clues are scored, and HGN and drugs.
Is the finger to nose test hard even sober?
Yes. Closing your eyes removes your vision and tipping your head back disturbs your inner-ear balance, so the posture itself makes almost anyone sway and miss. There is no validated scoring for it, so the result is one officer’s impression of a task that is hard for sober people too.
This page is general information, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Field sobriety exercises in Florida are governed by case law and by section 316.193, Florida Statutes. Procedures and rules change, and every case turns on its own facts. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
