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Sobriety Checkpoints Could be Used More Effectively in the USA 

September 21, 2004

Sobriety checkpoints could significantly reduce the 17,000 deaths and half-million injuries each year in [alcohol related] crashes, but police agencies aren't using them nearly as often or as effectively as they could, according to new research.

A research report by three of the nation's top traffic safety experts found that checkpoints clearly save lives and prevent injuries. But because of misperceptions that checkpoints aren't productive or cost effective, and a lack of publicity about them in the local media, most police agencies and state highway patrols don't use them enough. The report by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation was published this month in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.

More frequent and better publicized sobriety checks can cut impaired driving fatal crashes by 20 percent, the research shows. Public awareness about checkpoints is critical to their effectiveness because it deters people from drinking and driving. Public support for checkpoints remains high, but publicity about them has been waning, according to the researchers.

While the number of people killed in alcohol-related crashes has declined from about 26,000 in 1982 to 17,000 last year, the death toll remains unacceptably high, and needlessly so, according to James C. Fell, the principal investigator for the report. Fell is director of Traffic Safety and Enforcement Programs for Pacific Institute.

"There's strong evidence that, if conducted on a weekly basis and highly publicized, checkpoints would save a lot more lives," he said. "Unfortunately, misperceptions about checkpoints have become barriers to their use, and Americans are paying for it with their lives."

In an earlier study sponsored by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Fell surveyed police agencies and found a half- dozen faulty beliefs underlying most police agencies' reluctance to fully utilize checkpoints. For example, concerns about cost and manpower deter many departments. But that's due to the mistaken belief that large numbers of officers, usually eight to twelve, must be used for checkpoints. Research sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found checkpoints using only three to five officers were just as effective.

Checkpoints would become even more effective if agencies used widely available devices called passive alcohol sensors. These sensors, which are typically installed in flashlights, can quickly provide an indication of whether a driver has been drinking. Armed with that information, officers at checkpoints could better target drinking drivers and markedly improve the efficiency of checkpoints.

The authors of this report are James C. Fell, former chief of research and evaluation of traffic safety programs for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; John Lacey, a researcher for 20 years at the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina; and Robert Voas, who has been involved in research on alcohol and highway safety for over 30 years.

[DSA addendum: View an article on the success of sobriety checkpoints in Australia]

Source: Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation