Mothers Against Drunk Driving is asking for DUI checkpoints in Minnesota:
Mothers Against Drunk Driving gave Minnesota low marks in its new state-by-state evaluation of DWI laws.
To be fair and accurate, MADD will dock points from any state that doesn’t allow law enforcement to perform random no-knock breathalyzer and urinalysis raids in the middle of the night.
No, almost:
MADD, in particular, calls upon state lawmakers to legalize sobriety checkpoints, writing that they “will give law enforcement the tools needed to cut drunk driving fatalities.” (The organization also recommends requiring ignition interlocks for all convicted DWI offenders.)
Minnesota is currently one of just 12 states that doesn’t allow law enforcement to conduct sobriety checkpoints.
Clearly there’s a drunk driving crisis in Minnesota.
Well, no. There’s not. Minnesota is well below the national average in the percentage of automobile deaths related to alcohol and alcohol impairment.
And despite MADD’s blandishments, there’s considerable evidence that random checkpoints aren’t especially effective at getting drunk drivers off the road, much less saving lives, as compared to the perfectly effective roving patrols.
Alcohol-related deaths on the road are down nearly 50% in the past 25 years.
But if MADD thinks shoving the police state’s foot in the door up to the knee by gutting the Fourth Amendment even more is the answer, maybe it’s time for America’s voters to send them off to political happy hour.
Here’s the problem with MADD. They have declared war on country bars and the casual drinker.
Hey MADD, if you really want to do some good, go after the slick lawyers who get people off from DWIs.
Bigger picture, we lose some many freedoms because we can’t deal with the real criminals, so everyone pays for loss of freedom. Can’t stop terrorists, so now no one can bring a bottle of water on a plane. I got questioned by police in Pennsylvania because I took a picture of an Amtrak depot. And that was the street side.
What I have never understood is why we want to push for random traffic stops that inconvenience everybody and may catch a few UI drivers in the act, when we could simply change the law to permit “reasonable cause” stops that would be more fruitful and PREVENT UI drivers from driving. That is, cops set up a random, rotating surveillance of drinking establishments, and anybody that walks out solo and gets in a car, we stop them before they move. At that point, they haven’t committed a crime, so they can be sent home in a cab or whatever, perhaps paying a misdemeanor fine for “attempted DUI” or somesuch. Seems a lot more sensible to me to prevent the crime.
It’s interesting that we’re a fairly low DUI/drunk driving death state despite being a fairly high drinking state.
It’s also worth noting that as you assign more and more boring duty (like this) to police officers, smart people leave. OK, when we’ve got an awful lot of serious crimes that need attention and aren’t being solved, we want to make police work more boring exactly….why?
Mr/s. Ewing – I personally believe that appropriate warnings and public education is an important component to the enforcement of laws. However, under the circumstances you describe a person who enters a car and gets behind the wheel preparing to drive could still be charged with the part DUI statutes which allows for the charging of any who is in “physical control” of the vehicle (see MSS 169A.20). A crucial component of that would be having the keys to the car in possession or in the ignition when inside the vehicle.
There was a time years back when local barroom lawyers counseled their fellow drinkers to hide or throw their car keys into the bushes after being pulled over. In theory, this would negate the arrest since everyone knows that you have to possess the keys to be arrested. Obviously, in such a situation, witnessing the person actually driving their car made the presence of car keys irrelevant.
Some who witnessed such behavior found it rather humorous when the driver was found not to be impaired, but had to spend the rest of the night searching the bushes for the thrown car keys.
MADD has changed their mission far beyond what was originally a valuable and successful enterprise of removing the hard core drunks from the road via social stigma, improvement and enforcement of drunk driving laws and harsh penalty for violation of drunk driving laws.
http://www.activistcash.com/organizations/17-mothers-against-drunk-driving/
Now it is a prohibition movement with the goal of zero tolerance for any drinking prior to driving. Even though studies have shown that reduction of BAC level to .08 and checkpoints have not reduced by any significant measure deaths due to drunk driving, MADD presses on with this agenda.
And I couldn’t quickly find a link, but I understand a lot of MADD’s activities lead to revenue growth at insurance company’s (via the higher premiums charged to persons convicted of drunk driving even if they were a .08) and lawyers (via legal fees paid by the accused to reduce sentences, get licenses back, etc.) who fund a lot of MADD campaigns.
Much to my dismay, we have checkpoints here in SC, but fighting against them is a lost cause. Comes with living in the Bible belt, and when weighed against all the other freedoms I enjoy, this is one I’ll live with, albeit grudgingly and without cooperation.
Mitch–not that I disagree with you, but the way you frame the argument invites a question:
What about states like Wisconsin, where probably one in ten drivers is drunk at any particular time and we’re chock-full of folks who have racked up their fifth, tenth, twelvth, even fifteenth DUI? What should MADD’s approach be here?
MADD’s biggest critique of Wisconsin is that first offenses are still treated as traffic tickets. I think that may be one of the few reasonable positions MADD still takes.
Pete, I agree with Mitch there. There is no excuse for someone with more than two DUIs/DWIs to still have their driver’s license.
F*ck MADD, and f*ck any states with laws allowing roadblocks. I was actually always surprised that MN said no to sobriety roadblocks – it’s such a communist state in all other ways.
Didn’t know about WI treating first offenses of DUI as traffic tickets. I support that, if no one got hurt. We have enough rules to obey as it is, and enough consequences.
I bet they don’t do that for Minnesotans, though!