Published: November 27, 2008 08:20 am            

Sobriety checkpoints have run their course

The Thanksgiving holiday week kicks off a season that is well-known for its accompanying festivities. Families and friends will get together, and chances are high that most adults will be celebrating with a beverage or two.

But just as most party-goers make it a point to look after each other at these holiday gatherings, local governments will be taking extra precautions to keep our roads safe.

Unfortunately, these heightened traffic safety programs fall short of expectations. Alcohol-related fatalities have been reduced by more than 30 percent since 1982 – no thanks to one of the most popular traffic programs in the past decade (during which fatality numbers have leveled off). It is a policy which all but 11 states still cling to despite its obvious reliance on emotion instead of effectiveness: Sobriety checkpoints.

These roadblocks will result in many long lines that thousands of Pennsylvanians will find themselves waiting in this weekend. But buried among next week’s news stories about holiday shopping and the economy will be plenty of articles in local newspapers under headlines such as: “No Drunk Drivers Caught At Sobriety Checkpoint.”

Last holiday season, hundreds of vehicles were stop-ped, and only one or two arrests were made.

Since these checkpoints are highly visible by design and publicized in advance, it’s surprising that they manage to make any arrests at all.

How can placing a group of police officers at a single location, waiting for drunken drivers to come to them, be the best approach to traffic safety? Roving police patrols, or saturation patrols, are clearly more effective.

They arrest up to 10 times as many drunken drivers as checkpoints by patrolling the highways and looking for dangerous drivers.

The problem with roadblocks is that they are too easy to avoid by hard-core alcohol abusers. National data consistently show that the average drunken driver involved in a fatal crash had a blood-alcohol concentration of more than twice the legal limit.

These are chronic drunken drivers, not someone who has had a glass or two of wine with Thanksgiving dinner.

Policy-makers had good reason to give these checkpoint programs a chance. But the reality is that checkpoints aren’t further shrinking the much-diminished drunken-driving problem.

Roadblocks cost taxpayers a whopping $8,000 each, on average. A typical saturation patrol with two officers runs about $300.

Proponents are going to be working harder to justify the lack of return on these substantial investments of taxpayer money. But try not to be distracted by their emotional appeals. Checkpoint advocates, led by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), have a lot more in mind for these roadblocks than traffic safety.

MADD defends checkpoint programs so aggressively because it is dedicated to minimizing alcohol consumption, not simply ensuring it is consumed responsibly.

During the next several weeks, MADD’s campaigns will be dedicated to making sure Americans feel sufficiently guilty about consuming any spiked eggnog whatsoever prior to driving.

No one is against taking extra steps to make the roads safer during the holidays. But there is little evidence to suggest that checkpoints are the smartest way to do that.

Be safe on the roads this holiday season. But remember that the coming weeks are especially appropriate for re-examining our most misguided alcohol policies. Prohibition was repealed 75 years ago on Dec. 5, reinstating the freedom of Americans to enjoy the beverage of their choice.



Sarah Longwell is managing director of the American Beverage Institute in Washington, D.C., an association of restaurants committed to the responsible serving of adult beverages.

        

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