What is this world coming to? Seriously. Life mimics commercials like the one below:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) developed a curriculum to train law enforcement on how to detect impaired driving. One of these programs, Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE), is now being offered as an online training.

The goal of the training is to “train law enforcement personnel on how to observe, identify, and describe the signs of impairment related to drugs, alcohol, or a combination of both.”

The problems with this are multi-fold. As was fully litigated in Maryland, the more robust testing for Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, the NHTSA Drug Recognition Expert program has not been scientifically validated. ARIDE is an extremely dumbed down version of DRE. Think Kindergarten. If DRE is not scientifically validated, then how on earth can ARIDE be any good.

Further, how can they achieve these goals of proficiency without practical classroom learning?  Can this really be done online, without an instructor and without any grading in using the techniques used by the participant?

Let’s put all professional training online? Dentists removing teeth…. no problem I took a course online where I didn’t actually pull any teeth or practice on a person or cadaver. Open up and say ahhh.

To me this is another example of crappy training becoming crappier.

Justin McShane

PA DUI attorney Justin J. McShane is the President/CEO of The McShane Firm, LLC - Pennsylvania's top criminal law and DUI law firm. He is the highest rated DUI attorney in PA as rated by Avvo.com. Justin McShane is a double Board certified attorney. He is the first and so far the only Pennsylvania attorney to achieve American Bar Association recognized board certification in DUI defense from the National College for DUI Defense, Inc. He is also a Board Certified Criminal Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Approved Agency.