Santa Rosa police on Friday night will be holding a DUI/driver’s license checkpoint.
The checkpoint will be 7 p.m. Friday to 1 a.m. Saturday and, as is usual, police declined to say where it would be.
Officers typically arrest only a couple of DUI suspects out of the hundreds of drivers stopped at such checkpoints, but local police say the checkpoints help deter people from drinking and driving. The checkpoints are highly visible with a dozen or more officers and flashing lights, and they basically scare people into being extra careful about drinking and driving.
Santa Rosa police, in their press release on Friday’s checkpoint, noted “research shows that crashes involving alcohol drop by an average of 20 percent when well-publicized checkpoints are conducted often enough.”
“Over the course of the past three years, DUI collisions have claimed two lives and resulted in 160 injury crashes, harming 194 of our friends and neighbors,” Police Sgt. Lance Badger said in a statement.
The Santa Rosa checkpoint is funded by a grant from the state Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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bill
DUI checkpoints are a racket to ratchet money from citizens. This does not change the drinking habits of citizens. Nor does it reduce accidents associated with alcohol. It simply gives more money to public safety. It is a racket. Alcohol abuse is a medical issue not a public safety issue. A safe public needs to attend to its substance abusers in a medical enviroment.
April 27th, 2012 2:46 am
Comanchepride1937
Why is it a Racket, shouldn’t people be held to a higher standard? Or should we be allowed to run a muck and possibly injure someone?
Alcohol a Medical Issue? It’s a Psychological Choice to Smoke, Drink or Kill. If a Person Drunk were to slap you in the face, kill your daughter while she was in a Crosswalk or run a Red Light while intoxicated you’d say oh it’s a Medical Issue they did nothing wrong.
Ignorance or Stupidity I find it hard to understand Thinking such as yours….
April 27th, 2012 9:09 am
Jeff
Passport weekend in Dry Creek is during the day but yet these checkpoints are at night. Anyone else think this is a little odd? If u people think these checkpoints arent a bunch of — designed to rake in money you are crazy. How many on you people are even on the road at midnight?
April 27th, 2012 9:23 am
Joseph Donegan
Happy Hunting, may a thousand cars be impounded tonight.
April 27th, 2012 10:53 am
bill
It is a racket…..
April 27th, 2012 11:51 am
J.c
There will be Checkpoints in Santa Rosa Tonight. YEAH SINCE THE DRUNK DRIVING WILL HAPPEN TOMORROW IN PETALUMA
Makes a lot of sense
Butter and Eggs – drunk fest
April 27th, 2012 2:14 pm
ken briggs
do not blame the cops , it is the courts that screw up . the courts should give these drunks with a 2nd dui a good fine . they should make them do a weekly drug test for five years ,make them go to AA weekly meetings for life and no license for five years . blame the courts because some of the judges are no good at doing dui cases , why ? how come we still have so many drunks if the judges will do there jobs we would not have so many drunks on the road .
April 27th, 2012 8:21 pm
Oscar
Checkpoints ? Ohh well they stop hundreds of cars and maybe one or two DUI arrest? I think this is stupid and way of waste of state money paying police overtime and pissed off drivers who are not drunk when all they have to do is going outside of the bars and pick them all before they get into the car and than kill someone , will be less waste of money
April 28th, 2012 5:11 am
rabecca
Ok, wait….their wasting exactly how much money on what is self admittedly really nothing more then a scare tactic….REALLY!!?? Not to mention the time of all the lawabiding citizens that are just trying to get frm point A to point B are unfortunate enough to get caught in that circus. Yes, this makes perfect sense! Only not.
April 28th, 2012 8:44 am
Steve
All done on Overtime Pay, the men in blue look forward to nights like this.
May 3rd, 2012 7:39 am
jordan
Not only expensive and ineffective, but unconstitutional. Nazi Germany had checkpoints, too. I wonder if that was for the peoples’ safety?
May 20th, 2012 8:12 am
Ralph
Here we go again…Commies
May 21st, 2012 10:25 pm