A Reasonable Consideration

The Sun's Michael Dresser notes that the new State Police Chief is not a fan of sobriety checkpoints:

There, Maryland State Police Superintendent Col. Terrence Sheridan chatted with me about sobriety checkpoints. He's a skeptic. Has been for a long time.

Before Gov. Martin O'Malley appointed him to lead the state police, Sheridan was Baltimore County's police chief for a decade. And Baltimore County, unlike many other local police departments, didn't do checkpoints. It was a stance that won little praise from such ardent proponents of checkpoints as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD. But Sheridan preferred a different strategy known as "saturation patrols."

Under that strategy, police essentially flooded a geographic area identified as a DUI hot spot with officers looking specifically for typical drunken-driving behaviors - drifting over the center lane, tailgating, speeding. These patrols typically yield lots off arrests.

In his public remarks, Sheridan said nothing to throw cold water on the various checkpoint enthusiasts at the news conversation.

But during our conversation, Sheridan restated his continued support for the saturation patrol tactic. He said he has no immediate plans to shut down the checkpoints - for now - but indicated that the state police will be examining their results.

"There's a better way to do it, and I want to find it," he said.

Sheridan said the saturation patrols can be effective on the side and back roads where the traffic volumes are too low to justify a sobriety checkpoint. He noted that many of the most deadly alcohol-related crashes occur on winding rural roads where the young and inebriated challenge curves and frequently lose.

And Sheridan makes good points, particularly about the location of deadly drunk driving accidents. However, this goes so much farther than actual results and leads us to the concept of good government. Is it really a good use of government resources to mass a number of cops in one area? Are sobriety checkpoints useful considering the police announce their locations in the paper in advance? And I have always been bothered the sobriety checkpoint's clear and obvious infringement on the rights of drivers, particularly those for drivers for whom officers have no probably cause.

Maybe, at least in one aspect of state government, common sense will emerge...