New Jersey's Drive Sober Campaign Aims For Safer Roads

It’s that time of year again. Grant money has been given to police departments throughout New Jersey for a DUI crackdown called Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over.

More than a hundred agencies are sharing more than $700,000 in grant money from the Division of Highway Traffic Safety to fund patrols and checkpoints through New Year's Day, targeting drunk drivers. Read more on it here.

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The goal is important.

“We are approaching a dangerous time of year when we see an increase in impaired driving. We urge everyone to make a plan to get home safely and never drive under the influence of alcohol or other substances." said Director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety Michael J. Rizol Jr.

The extra patrols, high visibility, moving among traffic, looking for telltale signs of inebriated drivers, is a very good thing. What I don’t support are the checkpoints. They are ineffective. They are a terrible way of stopping the most dangerous drunk drivers out there.

Here’s why.

Checkpoints Return — But Do They Actually Work?

In June of last year, the Monmouth County DWI Task Force set up a checkpoint at the Asbury Park traffic circle. All northbound vehicles that entered the circle were diverted onto Lincoln Drive. Police say they screened hundreds of drivers to determine sobriety. Typical checkpoint procedures.

The results?

Out of 686 vehicles, only one drunk driving arrest occurred. So 99.854% of drivers inconvenienced were perfectly sober.

If this result were unusual, I might find value in checkpoints. The fact is, it’s quite common. In California, a checkpoint inconvenienced 1,400 drivers, and not a single drunk driver was found. In Ohio, 450 drivers were stopped, with not one drunk driving charge.

Studies Say Roving Patrols Catch More Drunk Drivers

Many studies show how ineffective checkpoints are.

In 2009 University of Maryland conducted a study which concluded that checkpoints did not have “any impact on public perceptions, driver behaviors, or alcohol-related crashes, police citations for impaired driving, and public perceptions of alcohol-impaired driving risk.”

Furthermore, Supreme Courts in New Hampshire as well as Pennsylvania have concluded that roving patrols catch 10 times more drunk drivers than DUI checkpoints. The FBI agrees, stating that roving patrols of police officers are shown to result in more drunk driving arrests than checkpoints. Also, roving patrols catch drunk drivers who have higher BAC levels than those caught at checkpoints. In other words, the more dangerous ones.

Time to Rethink an Ineffective Tactic

Even the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration examined this question and found that checkpoint programs in many states did not have any effect on drunk driving awareness.

Hasn’t it been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results? Checkpoints are a terrible way to stop drunk drivers. Let’s move past them and put even more roving patrols out there.