Editorial: DUI checkpoints save lives

Friday, June 9, 2006 | 7:43 a.m.

The Nevada Highway Patrol and police departments throughout the state perform a public service with their periodic DUI checkpoints. Officers stop all cars at various locations and chat with the drivers just long enough to determine whether they should be given sobriety tests.

The American Beverage Association, however, has long opposed the checkpoints on the grounds that restaurants and bars will lose business because people will be so scared of checkpoints they won't stop for a beer after work or order a drink with their meals. The lobbying group supports the slogan, "Drink responsibly. Drive responsibly," over the more common advisory, "Don't drink and drive."

On Monday the group renewed its opposition to checkpoints by releasing a press release calling them "misguided." On its Web site, the group calls the checkpoints "public relations tactics" and adds, "... police need to rove the highways in search of the erratic driving that is the mark of a drunk driver. Roadblocks will not catch hard-core drunk drivers."

In our view, all drunken drivers, whether hard-core or not, should be targeted. Police are saving lives when they use all legal means to do this.

During the hours of a typical checkpoint operation, officers are apt to arrest 10 to 15 people for driving under the influence. Over holidays, however, or after the Super Bowl, as many as 30 drunken drivers can be pulled off the roads.

In 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 216 people were killed in Nevada as the result of alcohol-related crashes, according to the state Transportation Department. And according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, 16,694 people died around the country during that year in alcohol-related crashes.

Many of the people who died, and many others who were seriously injured, were innocent drivers or passengers who happened to be nearby when a drunken driver lost control. With such tragedies occurring nearly every day, we believe police officers need every tool they can legally muster, including the DUI checkpoints.