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| 12/30/2008 8:58:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | New push expected for sobriety checkpoints
But sledding in the Legislature will be tough
They always come around at the same time every year.
No, not the holidays but the traditional seasonal call for Wisconsin to enact sobriety checkpoints - or random roadblocks - as a means of curbing drunken driving in a state that has among the highest occurrences of drunken driving fatalities in the nation.
Not surprisingly, since Wisconsin is still one of only 11 states that prohibit checkpoints, the counter calls against them are even more resounding.
This could change in 2009. Usually Mothers Against Drunk Driving are the leading proponents for roadblock legislation, but this year they received a boost from Gov. Jim Doyle, who declared his support for such a law, and from a series of articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ("Wasted in Wisconsin") and other newspapers highlighting alcohol problems in the state.
The media focus has been so intense that it attracted The New York Times, which ran a Nov. 16 piece entitled, "Some See Big Problem in Wisconsin Drinking."
However, as the specific matter of sobriety checkpoints gains traction, questions are being raised in other parts of the country about their true effectiveness.
Older studies and the federal government have long corroborated the value of checkpoints.
"Fewer alcohol-related crashes occur when sobriety checkpoints are implemented, according to a report published in the December 2002 issue of Traffic Injury Prevention," the federal Centers for Disease Control's Injury Center reports. "This conclusion is based on a systematic review of research on sobriety checkpoints. The review was conducted by a team of experts led by CDC scientists, under the oversight of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services - a 15-member, non-federal group of leaders in various health-related fields."
The CDC review found that sobriety checkpoints consistently reduced alcohol-related crashes, typically by about 20 percent, no matter how the checkpoints were conducted or whether they were frequent or infrequent.
Another view
But later statistics have not been as compelling.
For example, according to the American Beverage Institute, 2003-04 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that states where checkpoints were prohibited were actually driving a decline in alcohol-related fatalities in 2004.
Of the 411 fewer alcohol-related deaths in 2004 compared to 2003, the ABI reported, 394 were realized by the 11 states that did not permit roadblocks. Every one of the 11 non-roadblock states saw a decline in alcohol-related fatalities, while almost half of roadblock states saw an increase in alcohol-related fatalities, the group stated.
The ABI believes roving patrols are a better way to go, and, once again this holiday season, the group has called for the increased use of saturation patrols, in which police roam the streets looking for erratic drivers, speeders and other violators, as a more effective means of catching drunken drivers.
"By holding sobriety checkpoints, safety officials are ignoring the root cause of today's drunk driving problem - hard core alcohol abusers," ABI managing director Sarah Longwell said.
The NHTSA figures show that the average BAC of a drunk driver in a fatal car crash is 0.18 percent, Longwell said - more than twice the legal limit. Yet, she said, sobriety checkpoints fail to target that population while inconveniencing all driving adults.
Longwell said checkpoints often catch no drunk drivers at all while typically costing more than $10,000 in a time of scarce resources.
"Because they are highly visible by design and publicized in advance, roadblocks are all too easily avoided by the chronic alcohol abusers who comprise the core of today's drunk driving problem," Longwell said. "That leaves adults who enjoyed a beer while watching a bowl game or a glass of wine with Thanksgiving dinner to be harassed at checkpoints."
The ABI also cites a NHTSA study that found that "the number of DWI arrests made by the roving patrol program was nearly three times the average number of DWIs made by the checkpoint programs."
So just how many drunken drivers do checkpoints nab? It's hard to quantify, though two recent incidents underscore Longwell's point.
In Kansas City in 2007, for example, police stopped 18,747 vehicles using checkpoints, arresting only 1.6 percent of those drivers on drunken driving charges, the Kansas City Star reported in July. The total arrest rate was only 2.8 percent for all offenses.
By contrast, Kansas City area police stopped just 2,765 cars during saturation patrols but those stops yielded more total charges - 3,100 - than the number of cars stopped and five times more charges than the checkpoints produced, according to the newspaper.
And, the paper reported, the cost per saturation ticket was $31.68; the cost per checkpoint ticket was $184.84.
Then, just this past weekend, in the San Francisco Bay Area, police in Union City stopped 632 cars at a sobriety checkpoint. The number of drunken driving arrests?
Zero.
MADD marches on
In Wisconsin, though, proponents such as MADD have not wavered.
Kari Kinnard, Wisconsin MADD's state director, brushes aside arguments of inconvenience, stressing instead the importance of safety.
"There are many things we all do in the interest of public safety - passing through airport security, stopping at red lights and not smoking in public areas," Kinnard stated in a November holiday message. "Sobriety checkpoints are simply one more proven, common sense approach to stopping drunk drivers at minimal, if any, inconvenience to the driving public. Three in every 10 Americans will likely be involved in an alcohol-related crash during their lives. If it's a sobriety checkpoint versus possibly my life or someone I love, I'll take the checkpoint any day."
That's increasingly important in a state where the problem is so intractable, she said. "Wisconsin has the regrettable distinction of being the most dangerous state in the country when it comes to drunk driving," Kinnard said. "Forty-two percent of traffic crashes on the state's roads are caused by a driver with a blood alcohol concentration at or above .08."
And, she added, far from wasting money, checkpoints save taxpayer money.
"Checkpoints not only save lives, but also dollars," Kinnard said. "Studies have shown for every dollar invested in checkpoints, communities save between six and 23 dollars in costs from alcohol-related crashes. The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes to society is staggering - over $100 billion."
Those checkpoints are just one more tool to fight drunken driving, she concluded.
"While strong enforcement continues to be a key element in MADD's Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving, it's not enough to end the toll being taken on America's roadways," she said. "That's why MADD is calling for measures such as sobriety checkpoints, mandatory alcohol ignition interlocks for all convicted drunk drivers, development of advanced vehicle technology to automatically detect and stop drunk driving, criminalization of first OWI offense, and mobilization of grassroots support to truly put an end to drunk driving once and for all."
The prospects
But can MADD be successful in legalizing checkpoints in the Badger state?
It now has a powerful ally in Doyle, who said in October he would support checkpoints, but an array of political figures across the political spectrum is opposed. Opposition reaches from the fringes in the Libertarian Party to the state's attorney general.
The Libertarians say the U.S. Supreme Court long ago decided the issue, citing a 1925 decision in which the High Court stated it "would be intolerable and unreasonable if a prohibition agent were authorized to stop every automobile on the change of finding liquor, and thus subject all personals lawfully using the highways to the inconvenience and indignity of such a search."
(That was Carroll v. United States; however, in a later case, Michigan Department of State Police v. Rick Sitz, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of checkpoints to detect drunken drivers.)
"There is the matter of a ban on unreasonable searches, according to Article Four in the Bill of Rights," Jim Maas, the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin, said. "Stopping every car and searching the car and passengers for no reason other than they are driving at night is an unreasonable search."
Mainstream politicians such as Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsin Rapids), among others, have raised civil liberties concerns in the state Legislature.
Then, too, during his campaign for attorney general, Republican JB Van Hollen also opposed sobriety checkpoints.
"I believe we need to be tough on drunk drivers, especially when it comes to sentences for repeat offenders," Van Hollen said during the campaign. "Yet, unlike Paul Bucher and Kathy Falk (his opponents), I do not favor new laws that treat repeat drunk drivers the same as first time offenders. I also oppose the Falk-Bucher push for mandatory random roadside traffic stops. Their effectiveness is questionable, at best. I also believe they take away the presumption of innocence, clearly reflect a liberal, big-government philosophy, and are not a wise use of scarce law enforcement resources."
A recent survey by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found 17 Assembly representatives opposed to checkpoints, with 10 supporting them. In the Senate, nine senators opposed the checkpoints, while only one, Democrat Bob Jauch, declared support.
The remaining lawmakers, including Rep. Dan Meyer (R-Eagle River) and Sen.-elect Jim Holperin (D-Eagle River) did not respond.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Article comment by:
JOHN
ONEIDA COUNTY POLICE "are" conducting illegal sobriety check points for snowmobiles on both sides of HWY W on the Rhinelander trail.
Posted: Friday, January 02, 2009
Article comment by:
Van E Vergetis
Just about anyone drinking in a Bar or sporting event and consumes alcohol for a period of time will test.08.
There are many drivers who are arrested at .08-0.9 and they are not staggering drunk.
Posted: Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Article comment by:
T Schimanski
One of the only things the police can do that actually make a difference is taking a drunk driver off of the road. That comes from about 13 years of doing the job. Check points are not liked by some, but they are effective. If no drunks are caught on the check points, maybe they worked!!!!
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