By Larry Copeland
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON, DC — The attempt this week by four U.S. senators to restrict the use of downloadable applications that alert drivers to the locations of sobriety checkpoints is spotlighting an effective but controversial tool in the fight against drunken driving.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has concluded that checkpoints reduce alcohol-related crashes, and the Supreme Court has ruled that they are constitutional. But 12 states do not allow them; in most of those states, it’s because their state constitution forbids them.
Checkpoints generally net relatively few drunken-driving arrests, but police and other experts say they have deterrent and educational value.
“DUI checkpoints are proven to be effective at deterring drunk drivers,” says Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. “The goal is not to write tickets or make arrests but rather to remind the public that they should drive sober or face serious consequences.”
Some police argue that if drivers can pinpoint the locations of DUI checkpoints, some will drink all they want, and then drive on roads that skirt the crackdowns.
That was the rationale of Democratic Sens. Harry Reid of Nevada, Charles Schumer of New York, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Tom Udall of New Mexico, who asked smartphone makers Apple, Google and Research in Motion to quit selling apps that allow drivers to locate checkpoints, or to disable that function. Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, agreed.
Some experts say that checkpoints are less cost-effective than rolling patrols, in which officers drive around and look for people driving drunk.
“They freeze up a certain amount of resources standing out there on the side of the road. They tend to tie up traffic,” says Dennis Kenney professor of criminal justice at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “That said, they do catch some drunk drivers, especially if they set them up in places where they’re difficult to avoid.”
Riverside County (Calif.) Sheriff Stanley Sniff, whose deputies made 491 DUI arrests at 83 checkpoints in 16 cities last year, says: “Random patrols are still the most effective. We make light-years more arrests on random patrols than at checkpoints.”
Sniff says his traffic checkpoints are widely advertised -- but still work. “As soon as we set up, people are texting each other, using word of mouth, making phone calls,” he says. “They know where we are. That’s what’s so interesting. We still catch drunk drivers.”
Some critics of sobriety checkpoints maintain that they strip away individual rights. “I think there ought to be a high burden of proof for randomly stopping people with no prior evidence that they’re alcohol-impaired,” says Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the libertarian Reason Foundation. “If the car’s weaving around, certainly. Otherwise, I think that’s a violation of civil liberties. In effect, it’s an illegal search.”
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