Do you think that drunk driving check points are effective? espically if they are publicized!?

Answer 1

Clearly not effective. If government truly wanted to reduce drunk driving, they would expand public transportation and/or put the Breathalyzer starting mechanism on all cars. Where I live, pubic transportation stops at midnight and the bars close at 2am. What sense does that make?

Answer 2

Foresight is always better than hindsight. If police can prevent drunks from driving in the first place, they have done a lot better job than just catching a drunk driver.

The check points are publicized so the police can avoid legal issues about illegal mandatory stops. The will go ahead and catch the drunks, because they are publicized when most of the drunks are busy drinking and don't get the notice.

Answer 3

Yes, they are effective. You would be surprised at how many people don't pay attention to the news.
It also raises public awareness of the fact that officers are still watching for drunk or impaired drivers.
However, a large part of the arrests and citations that are made are due to people driving on suspended or revoked DLs. These people are the ones that got popped for DUI's and other traffic offenses that still continue to drive.
It is very rare that a crash is actually an accident (mechanical failure), it is almost always due to driver error. Often, this is due to the impairment or intoxication of the driver.
I have seen too many families destroyed by impaired drivers to think that it is even remotely funny. My first fatality was of a registered nurse on her way to work that was struck and killed by an intoxicated man that had several previous DUI's.
Every DUI should be a felony.

Answer 4

Not in the least. Why the hell do the cops have to tell the drunks where they will be doing dui checkpoints? What next? Telling the community where the cops will be at a particular time? what their patrol route will be? douchebags who drive drunk don't deserve a "fighting chance". Driving is not a right, it is a privilege. Frankly, i'll deal with the DUI checkpoints if it means some drunk is gonna be off the road.

Answer 5

Yes.
They are effective in keeping some people from drinking. And, oddly enough, even when publicized they still wind up catching a few drunk drivers. But remember, arresting people at the check point is not what it's there for. Its purpose is to deter people from drinking and driving.

Answer 6

There are entrapment issues here so advertising is a way around that, technically speaking it's a probably cause issue so there are arguments on both sides here i don't have a problem with them and i have participated in many in my career as a police officer and you would be surprised how many that have caught and taken off the road at least that night

Answer 7

I feel that due to soome OUTRAGEOUS lawsuits that have been allowed, that the DUI traffic stops are publicized so as to prevent entrapment.

As another thought, people who drink know where they are and not sure about everywhere, but locally, they are set up randomly throughout the area and cover a large area, so perhaps they assist in curbing some drivers.

I do know that they do catch many DUI's in an evening, so they are worth it.

Answer 8

Nothing is effective when you're dealing with drunks. Except throwing them in jail for a very long time.

Answer 9

Yup. Publicizing them creates awareness of the problem, & they always get a bunch of DWIs even when the location is publicized.

Answer 10

They have to be publicized, or someone will complain that it was an arbitrary location.

And they still get lots and lots of drunks anyway.