The Baynet had this article in their current issue discussing an upcoming Sobriety Check in the Leonardtown area:
It reminded me of another Sheriff’s Department Sobriety Checkpoint done back in 2010 aimed at nailing Government workers on the way back to work from their Christmas luncheons. The Deputies’ going in assumption was that folks would have had a couple drinks at lunch and be over the legal limit. As noted in the following article, no drivers were found to be under the influence.
It prompted this excellent Letter to the Editor from my friend Robert Willey in a subsequent issue of the Enterprise:
(Note that I recall my friend Gary Rue also writing a very good letter to the editor complaining about how stupid all this was, but I wasn’t able to track it down. I do remember Gary pointing out how the checkpoint negatively affected his wife’s hair salon business because her clients were either late for their appointments or missed them completely.
Buzzy’s Country Store most infamous Sobriety Checkpoint imbroglio involved Pat John Forrest not believing that there would be one located a half mile above the Store on the very night that Buzzy was having his Christmas party.
As folks pulled into Buzzy’s that evening, they passed the word that the checkpoint was going on at the Episcopal Church across from Nelson Dean’s house. Pat John refused to believe this and proceeded to drive up the road to prove that it wasn’t so. Alas, he ended up in Leonardtown charged with a DUI.
For many reasons (including owning a bar being one of them) I have never been a fan of Sobriety Checkpoints. Police hassling the many to try and catch a few has never made much sense to me. Do a quick re-check of Robert’s math above where he states that even if the Deputies had popped one driver out of the 600 or so they had stopped, that still only equates to a rate of 16/100ths of a percent! Even a Ridge boy can do that math and tell you that that is not a very good rate of return on such a considerable investment of time, resources and money. As Robert concluded – couldn’t these resources be better utilized? I am sure that Pat John, were he still here with us, would agree with me and give us a thumbs up!)
Just started watching Slow Horses which features this from Mick as its theme song: