What are your thoughts on DUI check point

Gatyr wrote: Bunkered wrote: Well, I'm well beyond that as far as first time I drove. That was 13 years ago. My driving instructor when I was 15 thought I was better the first time I got in the car with him than most students were leaving his class, and he told me this. Now I'm 20 and have driven well over 200k miles without any incident, ticket, accident, etc. I'm fairly certain that's evidence to support the fact that I'm an "above average" driver. And that's during the time when I'm supposed to be most dangerous. Now I've got more experience under my belt, I'm far LESS likely to have an incident while driving. So would none of that have to do with the sparsely populated area you live in? I bet those dirt roads you allegedly adhere to have some rough traffic you manage to avoid.

I adhere to dirt roads only while drunk.
The areas I "hang out" in are more like Pontiac, Flint, or (if I'm house-sitting for my sister as I do sometimes), Detroit. Hardly what I'd consider "low traffic."
I'm usually the one who drives on our two annual 4-hour road trips to Boyne/Nub's Nob, and that is usually during some nasty, snowy weather with decent amounts of traffic (lots of people head north for the weekend here).
I also drive to Cedar Point about once a year, and do a lot of joy-riding around the Auburn Hills area.
You don't rack up 200k+ miles driving around a town that's 15 miles wide (if that).

I'm not saying I'm the best driver on Earth by any means. Just that I'm not your average, testosterone-fueled maniac teenager that thinks going fast/driving recklessly makes you cool, and that I have a fair amount of experience; much more than most people my age.

*Edit: Forgot, I drive to Alabama once a year also to visit relatives. My parents got tired of driving 13 hours once I turned 16 apparently.

Edited by Bunkered - 09 December 2007 at 1:46am

rednekk98 wrote: I'm convinced that checkpoints are more of a PR and revenue generating thing than actually a useful deterrent. A more interesting statistic would be the average BAC of the violators. As I said before, in this state, checkpoints are usually held on weekend nights near college towns or entertainment districts. Blow a .09 after having three beers in a two hour period, get your car impounded and go to jail. In the meantime while the police are running the checkpoint, drunk retards are drag racing elsewhere in town. I'm not sure about sobriety checkpoints, but in a normal stop in this state, you must first fail a field sobriety test before they breathalize you.  If you do fine on the field sobriety test, you should not be too impaired to drive no matter you BAC. Roving police patrols would be more likely to target abnormal driving behavior and would probably be a more efficient use of manpower. If I get stopped at a checkpoint an am not even intoxicated the police are probably going to find something wrong with my car to cite me for(ripped windshield wiper, registration sticker in wrong corner of the plate) in this state. I for one have a problem with getting stopped, searched, and interrogated about my nightly travels when I've done nothing wrong, and since these are usually held late at night, now I'm going to be late to go home and sleep. Driving when you are sleep deprived is worse than driving drunk.

I agree with this.

Everytime there is a checkpoint in my area. Everyone knows about it beforehand.
It is even advertised on the radio, newspaper, and Television.
So if you get stuck in one, you are seriously uninformed or stupid.
It is a huge PR deal for the cops.