An example would be security. Assume you live in a neighborhood with one hundred houses, three burglars, no police, and assume a burglar can only burgle one house a night. With no police, you could assume 3 burglaries a night. If you add one police officer who can protect 33 houses a night, you would assume the next night you would still have 3 burglaries since 67 houses are left unprotected. If you add 2 police officers, you would still have 3 burglaries because 2 police can only protect 66 houses leaving 33 houses unprotected. The rate is flat. If you add three police, then 99 houses are protected and suddenly there is only one burglary. If you add 4 police then 132 houses can be protected, so there are no burglaries. After 3.03 police have been hired, you have reached the point of diminishing returns. If you add 5 police you are wasting your money, since 165 houses can be protected and there are only 100 houses.
Now think about the DUI laws. The Goal of DUI laws is to prevent DUI deaths and injuries. In the 1970's, the legal limit for DUI was .12 or the level in which most people are considered drunk. The crime was commonly known as drunk driving. In the 1980's, the legal limit was reduced to 0.10 until about 2000. In 2000, the legal limit was reduced to 0.08 by then President Bill Clinton in a zero tolerance for DUI bill that tied 0.08 to federal highway funds as was done with the drinking age being raised from 18 to 21 in the mid-1980s. DUI deaths dropped from the 1980s steadily until about 2000. In 2000, the DUI fatality rates began to climb back to levels not seen since the early 1990s.
Why? The vast majority of DUI fatalities occur at 0.15 or higher. So why does lowering the legal limit to 0.08 not reduce DUI fatalities. Its simple economics. The law of diminishing returns. You see most people are not noticeably impaired by alcohol at 0.08. In fact, many people can past field sobriety tests like standing on one foot for 30 seconds up to as high as 0.15. If you can stand on one foot for 30 seconds, who exactly are you endangering? Police Officers now arrest people for DUI who register over 0.08 or greater. In some jurisdictions, drivers are arrested if they blow over .05 but under .08 and charged as less safe drivers. Assuming the only factor that has changed is the legal limit, the reason for the increase of fatalities is that the vast majority of people arrested for DUI are between 0.08 to 0.15. It takes an officer an average of 2 hours to arrest someone for DUI. Field sobriety tests have to be performed, the person searched, handcuffed, the car impounded, and the person transported to jail. Most police forces are straining to keep police on the street so taking an officer off the road for two hours is a huge blow to manpower. Most DUI task forces in Georgia are less than 10 officers. What happens is while the DUI police officer is fooling around with some who blows 0.08 who isn't even impaired about 10 or 15 people who are really drunk are driving by. The answer is either to raise the legal limit or to simply ticket people who blow between 0.08 and 0.15, take their license and tow their car. This would get the alleged impaired driver off the road and would cut in half the time an officer spends on people who are not drunk so they can focus on the real drunk drivers and thereby reduce DUI fatalities once again. The Cato institute came to the same conclusion in a study it performed. The mission of the Cato Institute is to increase the understanding of public policies based on the principles of limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and peace. The Institute will use the most effective means to originate, advocate, promote, and disseminate applicable policy proposals that create free, open, and civil societies in the United States and throughout the world.
To read the article from the Cato Institute click the title below:
Radley Balko is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Added to cato.org on October 30, 2005 The article appeared in the Washington Times on October 30, 2005.
A Colorado Doctor claims that DUI Standardized Field Sobriety Tests convict 3 out of 4 innocent people. DUI Standardized Field Sobriety Tests include the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, the 9 step Walk and Turn, and the One Leg Stand. The Doctor compares the accuracy of DUI standardized field sobriety test with courthouse security metal detectors. He argues that they are great at finding guns but also find things like phones and car keys. The machines can not discriminate between the illegal and legal. The Doctor surmizes that DUI Standardized Field Sobriety Tests do the same thing. These DUI Standardized Field Sobriety Tests can not discriminate between the impaired by alcohol and the generally uncoordinated. He claims that the "validation studies" performed by NHTSA are biased because they do not test a representative sample of the population but only test those driving late at night who smell of alcohol. The 1998 San Diego validation studies claim 90% accuracy but the Doctor claims the studies own data shows that the test indicate clues of impairment in over 63% of people below the legal limit. His website is fieldsobrietytest.info. The raw data is available below just click the underlined more tab. When reviewing the data notice that the breath test under the legal limit for Georgia DUIs and Metro Atlanta DUIs are bolded.
The answer is yes and no. Georgia DUI arrestees like all criminal suspects possess a right to remain silent and not incriminate themselves. These are most commonly known asMiranda rights, but come from the Fifth Amendment rights of the United State Constitution, rights under the Georgia Constitution, or rights under O.C.G.A. 24-9-20. See O’Donnell v. State, 225 Ga. App. 502 (1997)(Atlanta Fulton County DUI arrest) Price v. State, 269 Ga. 222 (1998)(DeKalb County DUI). Based on these rights an Atlanta DUI defendant who is "in custody" can not be compelled to perform field sobriety tests or give statements in response to police questioning. The Federal Miranda rights only protect testimonial evidence or statements. However, the Georgia Code extends those protections to things like field sobriety tests. Although generally, a person stopped for suspected DUI in for example Atlanta, Georgia is not "in custody" certain actions by the Atlanta police or other local Georgia police can turn a investigative detention into a custodial detention which requires the reading of Miranda rights even without a formal arrest and a trip to the Atlanta Detention Center.
"The test for determining whether a person is ‘in custody’ at a traffic stop is if a reasonable person in the suspect's position would have thought the detention would not be temporary. Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 442, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 3151-52, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984)." Hughes v. State, 259 Ga. 227, 228, 378 S.E.2d 853 (1989)(Cobb County DUI); see alsoPrice v. State, 269 Ga. 222, 498 S.E.2d 262 (1998); State v. O'Donnell, 225 Ga.App. 502, 503(1), 484 S.E.2d 313 (1997).
In Hughes v. State, supra, the arresting officer made an arrest when he told the defendant that he was "not free to leave the scene of the initial stop" so that the field sobriety tests were performed after an arrest without giving a Miranda warning. In State v. O'Donnell, supra, the defendant, after a serious accident, left the scene and was involved in a second accident; the defendant was arrested and brought back to the scene of the first accident before being given the field sobriety tests and without receiving a Miranda warning.
Under both Berkemer v. McCarty, supra, and Hughes v. State, supra, it is the reasonable belief of an ordinary person under such circumstances, and not the subjective "belief" or intent of the officer, that determines whether an arrest has been effected. See Morrissette v. State, 229 Ga.App. 420, 422(1)(a), 494 S.E.2d 8 (1997)(DeKalb County DUI). Thus, when an officer tells a defendant that she is going to the Atlanta jail, whether or not she consents to submit to a field sobriety test, "[u]nder these circumstances we must conclude that, having been informed that she was going to jail, a reasonable person would have believed that the detention was not temporary. Therefore, the failure to give the Miranda warnings renders evidence regarding the field sobriety tests inadmissible." Price v. State, supra at 225(3), 498 S.E.2d 262.
Georgia law, codified at O.C.G.A. § 40-6-3, provides for the applicability of the rules of the road on private property only Driving under the Influence, Hit and Run, Striking an Unattended Vehicle and Striking a Fixed Object upon a Highway can be violated on private property. We have had Clayton County DUI cases were our client was driving at Southlake Mall without a seat belt. The loop road around the mall is a private road. It is not a through way as all access roads dead end into it. The way you can tell if a roadway is public is if the road sides conform to normal road signs. Public road signs are govern by the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. If the signs are shorter than normal or unusually decorative, i.e., carved wood, then its a private road. Our client's DUI was dismissed because its is not a crime not to wear a seatbelt on private property and it is only a crime on public roadway. The stop was illegal. No issue is too small to win a Georgia DUI.
A recent news story from Arizona raises an interesting question. Heather Squires, 29 year old female, was arrested for DUI. He blood test result came back at 0.00. Not just sober, but stone cold sober. She allegedly participated in voluntary DUI field sobriety evaluations. One of two conclusions can be reached. First, the field tests simply don't work. Or Second, the DUI police officer did not perform the tests correctly. Either result is hair raising. This phenomenon is not exclusive to Arizona. I have had a client that was arrested for DUI by a Forsyth County Sheriff's Deputy after field tests north of Atlanta, Georgia several years ago and the DUI blood tests came back 0.00. Another client in Clayton County, South of Atlanta, Georgia was arrested for DUI and blew 0.02 on the Intox 5000. He was over twenty-one and only 25% of the legal limit and arguably saver than a sober driver according to police breath testing training manuals. Which raises an interesting question, How do you pass DUI voluntary field sobriety tests? Short answer is you don't. There are no criteria for passing only failing. The criteria for faling are only 66%, 68% and 77% accurate for the One Leg Stand, Walk and Turn and Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus respectively according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Standardized Field Sobriety Tests Manual. So unless you know you can pass the DUI field evaluations don't take them. If you take them make sure you hire a qualified DUI attorney to challenge the these DUI field tests.
To obtain legal advice, please call (770) 961-5511 or email George C. Creal, Jr., P.C. at firm@georgialawyer.com. George C. Creal, Jr., P.C. is a law firm representing those charged with DUI or driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. We have been representing DUI Defendants for ten years in the City of Atlanta, Acworth, Alpharetta, Athens, Austell, Avondale Estates, Ball Ground, Barnesville, Big Canoe, Calhoun, Canton, Carnesville, Carrollton, Cedartown, Chatsworth, Chattahooche Hills, Clarkston, College Park, Commerce, Conyers, Covington, Dahlonega, Dallas, Decatur, Doraville, Douglasville, Duluth, Dunwoody, East Point, Fairburn, Forest Park, Forsyth, Fort McPherson, Fort Gillem, Gainesville, Grayson, Griffin, Hampton, Hapeville, Helen, Holly Springs, Johns Creek, Jonesboro, Kennesaw, LaGrange, Lake City, Lawrenceville, Locust Grove, Loganville, Lovejoy, Marietta, McDonough, Morrow, Newnan, Norcross, Palmetto, Peachtree City, Powder Springs, Roswell, Sandy Springs, Senoia, Smyrna, Stockbridge, Stone Mountain, Suwanee, Thomaston, Tucker, Union City, Villa Rica, Winder, Woodstock, and Zebulon and their surrounding counties including Fulton, Clayton, DeKalb, Henry, Fayette, Rockdale, Gwinnett, Cherokee, Forsyth, Coweta, Cobb, Douglas and Spalding. We also represent Defendants upon request outside of the Atlanta area throughout the State of Georgia.
Resources 
The law of diminishing returns is a fundamental principle of economics which is defined as: 