One of the first lessons you learn before getting your driver’s license is never to drink and drive.
As some people get older and have more experience with drinking, they think they know their tolerance so well that they could get away with driving home at the end of a night out. However, a proper field sobriety test conducted by a police officer will show how much alcohol affects your system.
One woman’s TikTok video went viral after she documented her and her friend’s experiences as they sat through a sobriety test party experiment that required getting intoxicated at their local sheriff’s department. Honestly, it looked like a great time.
Semiya Janay (@janaysway), a Dallas, Texas resident and TikTok creator had viewers shocked by the fun evening she had with the Dallas Sheriff’s Department, which she could hardly believe was legal.
Along with other local residents, Semiya was invited to participate in an experiment to help police trainees learn how to give field sobriety tests. They were required to get a ride from someone or arrive at the experiment via Uber.
At the start of the experiment, participants were asked to sign a consent form where they had to record their weight and specify whether or not they wanted to be classified as light or heavy drinkers.
Semiya filmed the nice police officer who handed her a cocktail to sip on before she sat at a table with her friends. Over the first hour of the experiment, they had to consume two drinks with precisely measured ounces of alcohol. Semiya and her friends started having fun with other participants as they drank, and it turned into a safely supervised party.
“We started drinking, we started getting friendly,” says Semiya in her video.
Semiya and her friends can be seen playing various card games throughout the experiment and having a ton of fun as they started feeling “loose as a goose.”
Every hour as their drinks were consumed, police officers would walk around and have them take a breathalyzer test to record how their blood alcohol content levels changed over time.
Although they weren’t allowed to eat for the first few hours, when they finally did, the police department served them different kinds of dips and some charcuterie platters. After eating, the police officers served them their third beverage, which was when Semiya and her friends started definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol. Just like that, it was time to take a sobriety test!
Participants were moved into a different area to have officers in training conduct their field sobriety tests, which included walking in a straight line and following an officer’s finger with their eyes.
An important takeaway from the evening was that Semiya and her friends thought they’d be able to successfully complete the sobriety test in the moment but clearly did not, as you can see her and her friends stumbling through the tests in her video.
At the end of the experiment, the officers gathered everyone around to let them know their final blood alcohol levels, so they could see where they were in relation to the legal driving limit, which is .08%. Although Semiya was just barely under the legal limit, she was certainly feeling impaired. The experiment took five hours, and everyone was sent home safely in Ubers or with designated drivers.
TikTok users could not get over how enjoyable the evening at the sheriff’s department looked, and Semiya’s video received over 1.8 million likes.
“This is a really smart way to educate people and also build rapport with the community!” commented one user.
If your local police department offered this experiment, would you participate?
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