I ran some numbers on the results of these checkpoints. While they will not be surprising to regulars here, it would be nice to have a public debate on the cost and effectiveness of these.

Up front I'll say you can spare the "if we only take one drunk off the road it could save a family!" defense of the checkpoints. We all know fewer drunks on the road would be better and don't need to hear the obvious. The purpose of this post is to demonstrate that the methods and resources used are sub-optimal, and a discussion of better ways to reach the ends (fewer impaired drivers). The goal should be to catch many more during the same time period than this method is accomplishing.

Many news-making drunk-driving incidents show a pattern that these easily-avoidable and very expensive stops aren't targeting these drivers where they are and when they are, as many incidents are happening in the 1am-6am timeframe.



In the month of May, we had 3,146 drivers forcibly stopped and questioned using 270 man-hours. Five of those were charged with DUI, the ostensible reason for the checkpoints. 35 other citations were given.

So with a 0.16% DUI arrest rate (one of every six hundred twenty-nine drivers), do you believe the County should have spent 270 man-hours to stop over 3,000 drivers? Would taking those eight non-auxiliary police officers and have them drive the targeted district's roads for those three hours (preferably staggered 10pm - 6am, one officer per hour) yield better results with fewer resources and less interference with citizens?

I'd be willing to put money down that DUI charges during those hours are a number of times higher throughout the rest of the County than at those checkpoints during those times. The checkpoints are arguably an unnecessary burden on thousands of sober drivers per month... the 99.84% of them.

edit - man-hours number corrected re post below
another clarification - dates above are press release dates usually made the week following a checkpoint during a weekend



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2011 12:11PM by justsayin.

Foward your findings to the county supertards. Maybe they will shut 'em down.

justsayin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> In the month of May, we had 3,146 drivers forcibly
> stopped and questioned using 1,350 man-hours.

Your math is off. Total checkpoint time is 15 hours, with 18 people at each checkpoint for 270 man-hours. Your figures show 15 hours for each of 90 people.

I know several cops who seem to average a drunk driver every other day, so I'm thinking 270 man-hours should turn about 15 drunk drivers, not 5. But that's just personal observation, and I could be mistaken about how often they get a drunk driver. Even if they only get one drunk a week, that's still more than 6 if they patrolled for 270 hours.

Seems wasteful to me. These police should have been in Centreville...The hub of most criminal activity lately. I guess there's no money to be found in charging teenagers with stabbing Marines.

I saw a checkpoint last week on Van dorn street. I wonder if they will be more common?

Excellent post, justsayin.

Wow good job compiling all this information. It looks to me like a huge waste for nothing more than a show. I bet even the ones who get arrested are just the types that went out for dinner and had 3 glasses of wine or something. The real drunks--the habitual drunk drivers--know enough to avoid the checkpoints altogether.

as much as I HATE checkpoints, I'd have to argue this simple fact - catching even on drunk driver,saving even one person from a potential fatality - is worth it.

Sorry, but it's true.

http://www.drunkdrivingfacts.net/car-accident-articles/fairfax-county-virginia-april-crash-near-little-river-turnpike-and-guinea-road-results-in-fatality

cause that old man was at least the FOURTH person to die THIS YEAR in a DUI crash. And someone else has been killed since him.

"just sayin'" ;)

Gordon, from your article it clearly states, " Speed and alcohol were not believed to be factors in this crash." Do you read your own posts?

To rspond to your previous post:
I think that kind of non-critical thinking is what makes these situations worse, Gordon. Think about it for a second, set up a dragnet and catch one person drunk driving or DWI. They managed to stop at the checkpoint, not hitting an officer or any of the other cars that are around them, so how drunk could they be? How plastered do you think this person actually is? If that dragnet had not been there, this person would have made it home without hitting anything at all. Its the habitual offender, the one that is reckless is what you have to watch out for and that can be much more easily tracked by hanging out nears bars and just waiting, across the county, instead of concentrated at one spot.

I'm not a proponent of these checkpoints, I think they are used as a tool that takes far too much time, energy and resources than what we get. The ends do do justify the means, these things are a show, its all theatre. It is also a great way for the Police to grab some overtime, I would wager.

Anyone get that information? I bet you could FOIA it.

For the record; I have never received as much as a speeding ticket in twenty-plus years of driving.

How much do you all think these checkpoints do in the terms of preventing DUIs in the first place?

Gordon Blvd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> as much as I HATE checkpoints, I'd have to argue
> this simple fact - catching even on drunk
> driver,saving even one person from a potential
> fatality - is worth it.
>
> Sorry, but it's true.

No one suggested not catching drunk drivers, the checkpoint is catching fewer than could otherwise be caught. Being in favor of checkpoints is being in favor of taking fewer drunks off the road.

Criminally preset Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How much do you all think these checkpoints do in
> the terms of preventing DUIs in the first place?


That would probably be easy enough for someone to check out... there were no checkpoints conducted in March, at least that are mentioned in FCPD's press releases. Count the number of DUI charges in the arrest search for each month this year and see if there was a significant spike in March. It had to be March of course, with St Patty's Day. I guess Cinco de Mayo would balance it off.

That would be interesting to see.

However, with Fairfax having mostly regular DUI checkpoints, would it be an accurate reflection? Perhaps we'd be better off to find a similar demographic area that performs no DUI checks, and compare. I'm thinking this because regular checkpoints may have a more sustained deterrence effect in an occasional "off month" than an area accustom to no DUI checks at all.

What I want to know is how much they cost to run these things. and whether it is worth it to have them on major roads.

Cost isn't hard to figure out... throwing a number out there of an average of $50 per individual at the checkpoint (salary plus benefits), it is probably in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars including fuel and such but that's a wild guess. But stopping that many people is a cost in itself.

I didn't bring up cost as other enforcement would probably be done by those officers elsewhere unless it is an overtime activity, and I don't know enough about how FCPD works to know if alternative methods would let the auxiliaries stay at home.

Comparing Fairfax to some other locality that doesn't do checkpoints may be difficult and I'm not sure it would tell us anything that couldn't be explained away to demographic differences.

It would seem that if one knows where a checkpoint is and can avoid it, that is less of a deterrent than knowing unmarked officers are driving the county's arterials just looking out for odd driving. Checkpoints just squeeze a balloon and make drivers go elsewhere. Push down on several points of the balloon and it may pop.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2011 11:18AM by justsayin.

Fair nuf Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That would be interesting to see.
>
> However, with Fairfax having mostly regular DUI
> checkpoints, would it be an accurate reflection?
> Perhaps we'd be better off to find a similar
> demographic area that performs no DUI checks, and
> compare. I'm thinking this because regular
> checkpoints may have a more sustained deterrence
> effect in an occasional "off month" than an area
> accustom to no DUI checks at all.


I suppose the best comparison would be when they have extra cops out patrolling specifically for drunk drivers for a night or a weekend or something. I know they sometimes advertise they're running one of those types of programs.

Another good stat I would like to know is how many drunk drivers are caught on nights they have checkpoints but not caught AT checkpoints and how that compares with a normal night's numbers where nothing special is happening and cops are just patrolling like usual.

Edit: Here's something that may be unfair statistically but I'm throwing it out anyways. There was a checkpoint on May 21st that caught no drunk drivers. The incident report for the week ending May 25th says they made 63 arrests for "DWI-related charges."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2011 12:09PM by Johnny Walker.

There will be more checkpoints this weekend, so watch out!

Yes, those are "targeted enforcement" and almost always have better results in the press releases than the checkpoints.

Those other stats are easy for you to get, just fund a checkpoint date and do an arrest search. The number of arrests for the night minus the number of checkpoint arrests are the ones done outside the checkpoint. Run the same numbers for the other weekend evening and that will tell you roughly how many they catch on a night without any checkpoint in place.

They don't even advertise them ahead of time like they used to.

Johnny Walker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I bet even the ones who get arrested
> are just the types that went out for dinner and
> had 3 glasses of wine or something. The real
> drunks--the habitual drunk drivers--know enough to
> avoid the checkpoints altogether.

Yep, this definitely makes a difference. The idiot who doesn't know better than to have 3 glasses of wine at dinner when they have to drive themselves home afterwards definitely deserves to be arrested less than the other idiot who does essentially the same thing but more often.

Great point. :-)

I wish they were doing the Sobriety Checkpoint in the area of the Peru voting areas this weekend. I'm sure they'd get more than a few.

Kilton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Johnny Walker Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I bet even the ones who get arrested
> > are just the types that went out for dinner and
> > had 3 glasses of wine or something. The real
> > drunks--the habitual drunk drivers--know enough
> to
> > avoid the checkpoints altogether.
>
> Yep, this definitely makes a difference. The idiot
> who doesn't know better than to have 3 glasses of
> wine at dinner when they have to drive themselves
> home afterwards definitely deserves to be arrested
> less than the other idiot who does essentially the
> same thing but more often.
>
> Great point. :-)


No, the person I'm describing who does it much more often also drinks a lot more.

Look I realize you're saying breaking the law is breaking the law, but there are degrees. Do I want someone who had one too many at dinner to be out driving home? Ideally no. Would I prefer that to some drunk who just downed 10 drinks over a few hours at a bar who is getting behind the wheel perhaps even to go to another bar or another location altogether to get even more fucked up before he goes home? Absolutely.

Johnny Walker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do I want
> someone who had one too many at dinner to be out
> driving home? Ideally no. Would I prefer that to
> some drunk who just downed 10 drinks over a few
> hours at a bar who is getting behind the wheel
> perhaps even to go to another bar or another
> location altogether to get even more fucked up
> before he goes home? Absolutely.

I hear you, but the former is much more common. So saying that these checkpoints tend to only catch the former is meaningless (to say nothing of it being speculative) because it's exactly what statistics would predict.

Drinking and driving is wrong whether you do it often or just once, and whether you get caught everytime, once, or none. Period.

As an actual taxpayer in this county, I'm in favor of my taxes going towards this. The cost of one DD wrapping his and/or others' brains around a tree and all associated medical costs (do you even realize how much it costs to use a medical helicopter, or a single night's stay in an ICU?)

Kilton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Johnny Walker Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Do I want
> > someone who had one too many at dinner to be
> out
> > driving home? Ideally no. Would I prefer that
> to
> > some drunk who just downed 10 drinks over a few
> > hours at a bar who is getting behind the wheel
> > perhaps even to go to another bar or another
> > location altogether to get even more fucked up
> > before he goes home? Absolutely.
>
> I hear you, but the former is much more common. So
> saying that these checkpoints tend to only catch
> the former is meaningless (to say nothing of it
> being speculative) because it's exactly what
> statistics would predict.


Not only do they mostly catch the former though, they mostly catch NO ONE AT ALL.

justsayin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No one suggested not catching drunk drivers, the
> checkpoint is catching fewer than could otherwise
> be caught. Being in favor of checkpoints is being
> in favor of taking fewer drunks off the road.

This.

Kilton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Johnny Walker Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Do I want
> > someone who had one too many at dinner to be
> out
> > driving home? Ideally no. Would I prefer that
> to
> > some drunk who just downed 10 drinks over a few
> > hours at a bar who is getting behind the wheel
> > perhaps even to go to another bar or another
> > location altogether to get even more fucked up
> > before he goes home? Absolutely.
>
> I hear you, but the former is much more common. So
> saying that these checkpoints tend to only catch
> the former is meaningless (to say nothing of it
> being speculative) because it's exactly what
> statistics would predict.


Also, I don't concede the former are more common, and also, the ones we are describing here, the few-too-many ones, are also not the ones you have to worry about flying down the road and running over your kid or crashing into your house.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2011 12:41PM by Johnny Walker.

Johnny Walker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Also, I don't concede the former are more common,

That's just because you're being argumentative. :-) The "10 beers down habitual drunk" is clearly less common than Tiffany who had too much to drink at dinner or happy hour with her yenta friends.

Johnny Walker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> and also, the ones we are describing here, the
> few-too-many ones, are also not the ones you have
> to worry about flying down the road and running
> over your kid or crashing into your house.

That's a difference of opinion. I absolutely worry about them. People are bad enough at driving as it is. I don't want Tiff anywhere near me when she's bumbling around at .1.

And it's still not clear to me how the 10-beerer -- who according to you might crash into my house -- has the wherewithal to avoid a checkpoint.

Kilton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Johnny Walker Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Also, I don't concede the former are more
> common,
>
> That's just because you're being argumentative.
> :-) The "10 beers down habitual drunk" is clearly
> less common than Tiffany who had too much to drink
> at dinner or happy hour with her yenta friends.


I don;'t think I'm being argumentative. I think there's two kinds of drinkers in the world: responsible drinkers, and not responsible drinkers. There is very little in between. You are either careful about drinking and driving and sometimes may float on the edge of legal levels but not go far beyond, or you just think nothing of getting behind the wheel after getting hammered.


> Johnny Walker Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > and also, the ones we are describing here, the
> > few-too-many ones, are also not the ones you
> have
> > to worry about flying down the road and running
> > over your kid or crashing into your house.
>
> That's a difference of opinion. I absolutely worry
> about them. People are bad enough at driving as it
> is. I don't want Tiff anywhere near me when she's
> bumbling around at .1.
>
> And it's still not clear to me how the 10-beerer
> -- who according to you might crash into my house
> -- has the wherewithal to avoid a checkpoint.


Because they will more likely hear about a checkpoint or, seeing how these are set up in certain spots regularly, be more likely to avoid where they know they are sometimes at in general. Why bother taking the risk of driving through that spot at all after drinking if you don't have to?

I used the crash into your house thing because I know it has happened.

Johnny Walker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think
> there's two kinds of drinkers in the world:
> responsible drinkers, and not responsible
> drinkers. There is very little in between. You are
> either careful about drinking and driving and
> sometimes may float on the edge of legal levels
> but not go far beyond, or you just think nothing
> of getting behind the wheel after getting
> hammered.

I think this highlights the difference between us. The former is absolutely not "responsible drinking" to me. Not by a long shot.

Johnny Walker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Because they will more likely hear about a
> checkpoint or, seeing how these are set up in
> certain spots regularly, be more likely to avoid
> where they know they are sometimes at in general.
> Why bother taking the risk of driving through that
> spot at all after drinking if you don't have to?

Again, the notion of a 10-beerer who is so drunk that he's going to crash into my house being able to make deliberate decisions to adjust his route based on hearsay or prior checkpoint locations is bizarre to me. But I think we're officially beating a dead horse.

Ddd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As an actual taxpayer in this county, I'm in favor
> of my taxes going towards this. The cost of one DD
> wrapping his and/or others' brains around a tree
> and all associated medical costs (do you even
> realize how much it costs to use a medical
> helicopter, or a single night's stay in an ICU?)

But if they took your tax money and used it for targeted enforcement, your taxes may get more than one DD and the associated medical costs. No one is saying remove the enforcement, I only say that targeted enforcement gets more DD's and it is evident from the numbers and FCPD's own press releases that it is true.

justsayin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I didn't bring up cost as other enforcement would
> probably be done by those officers elsewhere
> unless it is an overtime activity, and I don't
> know enough about how FCPD works to know if
> alternative methods would let the auxiliaries stay
> at home.
>

The last check point I went through had one regular officer for every two rookies (were identified as such) in each group. Don't know if that's a standard or if it was just timing.


> It would seem that if one knows where a checkpoint
> is and can avoid it, that is less of a deterrent
> than knowing unmarked officers are driving the
> county's arterials just looking out for odd
> driving. Checkpoints just squeeze a balloon and
> make drivers go elsewhere. Push down on several
> points of the balloon and it may pop.

The same checkpoint (above) was on 50 just east of Annandale Road. You could clearly see it coming from a good ways away. About 4 out of every 10 cars were bailing on side streets. Bad choice of locations on their part.

If they check one drunk Liz it is worth it.

I heard she drinks and votes.

Plus Pat has seen her puss and boots in action.

@WTF Gordon - TOTALLY my bad - I mean to put this one up!

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/police/news-releases/2011/031511fatalinvmanslaughter.htm

wrong copy and paste job

there would be less drunks on the road if the buses ran at night.

Damn,
three hours, almost 700 people stopped and only 8 tickets and zero DUIs? One cop on the Fairfax Parkway could do better in half the time.

Now I have to apologize to the teachers who I accuse of screwing over the taxpayers. Seems like we have a new champion.

Opps a typo they only issued 5 tickets not 8. Isn't it time we put those checkpoints to bed. Waste of taxpayer dollars and citizens time.

They are setting one up on Rt. 1 tonite