Alcohol and Driving

The Ohio NMA supports legitimate and respectful means of removing seriously impaired drivers from the public roadways. Such impairment is often from alcohol usage. However, we OPPOSE the current vogues of Our views follow.
Police Road Blocks
Police Alcohol Roadblocks were legitimized by the U.S. Supreme Court decision Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990) {decision text via FindLaw}. Ohio NMA generally concurs with the dissenting opinions. We hold that roadblocks are
  1. intrusive on the motoring public as a whole
  2. stop individuals without individual probable cause
  3. no more effective than other methods, such as roving patrols, that are
    • nonintrusive to the motorist public and
    • based on probable cause
  4. lacking in any provable "deterrance" effect.
Our opposition is for the first two reasons alone, but more so with the third and fourth. Note that effectiveness is not sufficient reason for doing anything. This was noted in the Court dissent, which cited the comments of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Jackson soon after his return from the Nuremberg Trials [Footnote 9 in the case]:
These [Fourth Amendment rights], I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government.
For your reference, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Roadblocks have an unimpressive measureable effectiveness, as noted in the Court's dissent:

Colonel Hough, the commander of the Michigan State Police and a leading proponent of the checkpoints, admitted at trial that the arrest rate at the checkpoints was "very low." Instead, Colonel Hough and the State have maintained that the mere threat of such arrests is sufficient to deter drunken driving and so to reduce the accident rate.[13] ... [To be convinced of the Colonel's assertion, a reasonable person would attempt to] measure the number of crimes that were avoided. Perhaps because the record is wanting, the Court [in approving checkpoints] simply ignores this point.
Of course, claims like Col. Hough's as to deterrence effects are echoed by the Ohio Highway Patrol {link to OSHP site}. Their webpage of June 13, 1997 said:
...the true effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints does not lie in individual arrests, but in their deterrent effect. The most accurate bottom line figure, the lowest alcohol related fatality rate in Ohio history which was recorded at 24% in 1994, illustrates the importance of sobriety checkpoints in overall highway safety efforts.
However, the "bottom line" is affected by several factors (such as the proportion of younger drivers on the road) which the Patrol has ignored. Once again, the Patrol (like any bureaucracy not subject to independent review) takes all credit for positive results (which are largely beyond their control), but will immediately blame someone else if the "bottom line" takes a turn for the worse.

Why would roadblocks be any more effective as a deterrent than the D.A.R.E program? An article in the May 25, 1997 (Ft. Wayne IN) Journal Gazette noted (p. 13A):

Founded in 1983, DARE is the nation's most popular school anti-drug program. It brings police officers into elementary school classrooms to teach children about the danger of drugs and how to avoid them. But several recent studies have shown students who go through the program are just as likely to abuse drugs as those who don't.
Low BAC
Most accident-involved drunk drivers are habitual users and intoxicated well beyond current legal limits. Lowering the BAC limit is an exercise in futility with respect to highway safety, and further erodes individual rights. As the May 23, 1997 USA Today said:
Almost two decades after public service ads began preaching against drunken drinking, safety advocates can declare victory on one front: Friends don't let friends drink and drive...

But with one segment of society, safety advocates acknowledge defeat: chronic drunken drivers. People with prior convictions represent fewer than 2% of all adults but cause up to 60% of alcohol-related deaths and injuries on U.S. roads each year...nothing has made a dent in the behavior of drivers who continue to rack up offense after offense, posing the biggest risk on the nation's roads. [By Carol J. Casteneda, USA TODAY]

The Book Back to the Ohio NMA rootpage.

Updated June 13, 1997