The Truth Behind Sobriety Checkpoints?

Last weekend, several Ohio counties, including Franklin County,  conducted sobriety DUI checkpoints.  These public relations stunts do more to get veteran officers together for overtime pay and coffee than take drunk drivers off the roads.  For example, 4 alleged DUI drivers were arrested in Shelby and Logan Counties last weekend. That may sound good until you look beneath the numbers.

I would bet that no fewer than a dozen police officers were at each checkpoint. I would further wager that 10 of those 12 officers do not work 3rd shift so they are paid overtime. And, most of those officers are veteran officers who are at the top of the payscale.

Next, those 2 counties detained 531 motorists to find 4 DUI. If you took the 24 officers camped out on a county road and deployed them throughout the county targeting impaired driving, I can assure you each of them would have found one DUI driver. So, 2 checkpoints and 4 arrests. Or no checkpoints and 24 possible arrests.

This doesn't take into account the folks who avoided the checkpoints because of the advance publicity and/or signage warning of the checkpoint ahead.

If Ohio is truly serious about DUI enforcement, get rid of the "coffee parties" and put those officers on patrol in the same numbers.