Urging new tack in DUI patrols

A governor's task force recommended that checkpoints be changed.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Some law enforcement officials say traditional sobriety checkpoints aren't doing enough to prevent alcohol-related traffic deaths and are calling for alternative methods to catch drunken drivers.
From 2001 through 2003, the Ohio State Highway Patrol staffed 96 checkpoints that averaged 5.18 DUI arrests. Of the 75,930 drivers stopped, fewer than 1 percent were arrested for drunken driving, according to a review of checkpoint statistics The Columbus Dispatch published Sunday.
Col. Paul D. McClellan, highway patrol superintendent, said that although the publicized checkpoints raise awareness about drunken driving, they aren't the best method for arresting intoxicated drivers.
McClellan was co-chairman of the Governor's Task Force on Impaired Driving, which recommended in February that DUI checkpoints be changed.
The task force's report said that it believes "smaller enforcement groups patrolling in identified [drunken-driving] areas may be more effective than current large-scale, stationary checkpoints."
More arrests
Erie County Sheriff Terry M. Lyons, who served on the task force, said officers who patrol for DUI enforcement produce more arrests.
One checkpoint per year is staffed by 10 to 20 officers in the northern Ohio county, and Lyons said officers usually make no more than six arrests.
"If you take that amount of officers for six hours and put them on patrol doing strictly DUI enforcement, you'll more than likely have better results," he said.
But checkpoint supporters say that arrest numbers don't tell the whole story.
People are deterred from drinking and driving or designate a sober driver after hearing the checkpoints announced, said Sgt. Carl Booth of the Franklin County sheriff's office.
The checkpoints must be announced to the public and have to be held in locations that have a history of DUI arrests or alcohol-related crashes. Those rules are part of a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stated the checkpoints weren't a violation of Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures.
But McClellan said that relying on raising awareness with announced checkpoints isn't enough. He said fewer officers should staff checkpoints and more should be assigned to saturation patrols, where they cruise surrounding roads looking for drunken drivers.
One county's experience
The Franklin County DUI Task Force budgeted $57,000 this year for saturation patrols. In March, the most recent month for which figures are available, Franklin County officers devoted 110 hours to saturation patrols -- similar to the manpower hours of one DUI checkpoint -- and made 18 arrests.
McClellan said he wants to see better results by implementing more alternatives to stationary checkpoints.
"If we're still sitting here in 10 years doing sobriety checkpoints the way we do them now, I'm not convinced we'll have attained our goal for reducing traffic fatalities," he said.