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Checkpoint reminds motorists to 'drive sober or get pulled over'
By Sarah Lehr
YOUNGSTOWN
The headlights of police cruisers lit up the sky even as the sun set Saturday at U.S. Route 422.
Troopers with the Ohio State Highway Patrol converged near Jackson Street to set up a sobriety checkpoint.
The OSHP partners with the Youngstown Police Department, Mahoning County OVI Task Force, Meridian Healthcare and Mahoning Safe Communities to run the checkpoints throughout the county as part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over initiative.
Seven of the 11 fatal crashes in Mahoning County in 2016 involved impaired driving, according to the OSHP.
Officers wearing fluorescent vests set up a checkpoint beginning at 8 p.m. Saturday for drivers going both eastbound and westbound on U.S, Route 422. Checkpoints typically continue until 1 a.m. or until traffic slows to fewer than 50 cars per hour.
Lt. Jerad Sutton, OSHP Canfield Post commander, said the patrol chooses checkpoint locations based on crash frequency, OVI statistics and resident feedback.
Officers stopped every vehicle coming through the checkpoint and gave drivers a flier with information about the importance of driving sober. If police detected signs of impaired driving, an officer drove the vehicle to a diversion checkpoint for further evaluation.
Checkpoint interactions between officers and drivers average 17 to 25 seconds each. Sutton said that short conversation is crucial, noting that checkpoints have an educational value in addition to an enforcement value.
Though officers typically need specific probable cause for a traffic stop, the Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that checkpoints are a legal way to deter drunken driving, provided those checkpoints meet certain guidelines.
In Ohio, a law-enforcement agency must inform the public of a checkpoint’s general time and location a week before the checkpoint. The agency must provide the specific time and location roughly an hour before the checkpoint begins.
The Vindicator rode along with Trooper David Brown, a trained drug-recognition expert, as he made four traffic stops near the area of the checkpoint Saturday.
Brown said the OSHP typically looks for impaired driving around the peripheries of the checkpoint, since drunken drivers who are aware of the location might purposefully take detours.
Several of the stops led to citations for failure to wear a seat belt and one resulted in a citation for young children without booster seats. Two of the drivers had valid concealed-carry permits for guns on their hips. In other instances, Brown let drivers off with warnings for lack of front license plates, driving over the center line and driving 35 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone.
“I like to give people the benefit of the doubt,” Brown said. “If somebody shakes your hand after you’ve given him a warning or a ticket, you know you’ve treated him right.”
Brown said he’s seen stops for violations as routine as failing to wear a seat belt or driving over the center line yield arrests for OVI or violent offenses.
“When you start the night, you never know what you’re going to get,” he said.