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Comment by buildingsramen | Hacker News Reader

I'm shocked at the comments in this thread decrying DUI checkpoints. Does anyone not see drunk driving as a serious threat to public safety?

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1) DUI checkpoints are actually law-breaker checkpoints. Illegal immigrants, non-insured, unlicensed, whatever. They don't just catch and prosecute DUIs.

2) They wreck traffic.

3) In nearly all cases they are easily routed around. Most (if not all) are advertised in a local media -- affording habitual day-drinkers the opportunity to avoid them easily. (this wrecks the REST of the traffic near the area, usually with panicked drunk drivers avoiding the stop)

4) They cost law enforcement time, for very little proven efficacy at anything more than accruing state revenue for expired tags and other small misdemeanors.

I find these arguments much more convincing than "muh freedom". If these points are supported by evidence (especially #4) then that's good enough for me.

Thank god one's civil liberties aren't dependent on whether or not you are convinced by them.

Can you tell me which of your civil liberties is being violated by DUI checkpoints?

Traffic stops require reasonable suspicion to pull over your car under the Fourth Amendment. I find it hard to explain how a DUI checkpoint is not a similar action to a traffic stop.

See the Supreme Court ruling on this matter, elsewhere in this thread.

The Supreme Court has made bad rulings - we're certainly lucky Dred Scott v. Sandford doesn't still apply - and a 6-3 split indicates some significant disagreement even among the foremost legal minds in the country.

From a common-sense standpoint, I don't see how a DUI checkpoint isn't fundamentally similar to a traffic stop, regardless of the SCOTUS decision that permits them.

The harm DUI stops try to reduce are far more imminent than regular traffic stops. Drunk driving is far more dangerous than a broken tail light. That difference matters.

Murder's more dangerous, too, but that doesn't mean they can set up a "let's see if you have a dead body in your trunk" checkpoint.

The Fourth Amendment doesn't come with "unless it's super crime-y" exceptions.

You're conflating danger with imminent danger. The immediacy of the danger is highly related to what the state should be allowed to do.

Check these stats:

https://www.westmifflinpolice.com/west-mifflin-dui-checkpoin...

86% of the citations they issued at that “DUI” checkpoint were not for DUIs.

The name is misleading. It’s not a DUI Checkpoint. It’s just a checkpoint. The definition of a police state.

That's not really a helpful statistic. Sure, when police stop people they will find things unrelated to the reasons they stopped them. The statistic that is relevant is the percentage of people stopped that are driving under the influence, i.e., how many drunk drivers they take off the road. Multiply that by the average harm caused by an average drunk driver, and then compare that to the inconvenience/harm caused by creating the traffic stop.

It seems pretty obvious that inconveniencing 100 sober drivers for 5 minutes to prevent a drunk driving death would be worth it, even if 2 others get cited for unrelated offences. Simply citing unrelated citations doesn't really present a full picture.

Back to your original comment,

>Thank god one's civil liberties aren't dependent on whether or not you are convinced by them.

Apparently they are dependent on whether SCOTUS is convinced.

A DUI checkpoint is fundamentally different because police are unable to discriminate who they stop. They stop everyone who passes through the checkpoint.

I find these arguments much more convincing than "muh freedom".

Then you're doing it wrong.

1) Is that really a bad thing? Isn't it generally a good thing that law enforcement finds law-breakers?

2) So do drunk drivers that crash.

3) You're arguing against yourself. Yes, it's bad that bad guys get notified so they can avoid checkpoints.

4) Shouldn't law enforcement spend their time enforcing the law? It's well spent time IMO. As you say in (1), they also solve other more serious crimes (e.g. finding wanted criminals)

We have lots of threats. We don’t arbitrarily stop every single person to ferret them out. A free society demands some level of risk at the hands of other citizens.

Freedom of movement without harassment is important to me. More important than catching every drunk driver.

> We don’t arbitrarily stop every single person to ferret them out.

This is NYC we're talking about. Stop-and-Frisk was a fun game the cops played for years.

It's interesting how effectively propaganda has convinced people that searching known felons for illegal weapons isn't a "common sense gun law."

Edit: Case in point.

Stop-and-frisk had little to do with felony status. It was your black-and-young-and-male status that would trigger a search.

Oh for sure. Terry stops were (are?) massively abused in that city.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_C...

I reject your reasoning of pushing things into absolutes - drunk driving needs to be minimized, and people need to get where they are going. There's a balance between those needs that is optimal. Nobody is preventing you from reaching your destination, "how fast" is the only question.

As a wise man once said, "Drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it's impossible to say if it's bad or not."

I never mentioned speed or fear of delay.

DUI checkpoints are not that. They’re generalized fishing expeditions. If you’re sober, but have contraband, they can arrest you for that. Or for having and expired license. Maybe you’re late on your registration.

And I’m not pushing absolutes here. I’m just prioritizing freedom over the moral panic of the day. (Yes, drunk driving is bad. But checkpoints are still an overreaction and there’s little political will to go against MADD. It’s the same dynamic of “won’t somebody think of the children!”)

You are free to move around. You are not entitled to use public space, especially public transportation infrastructure built by the government, in a way you see fit.

Feel free to build a road in your private land, get drunk and speed all the way you want, nobody's going to impinge on your freedom.

> You are not entitled to use public space, especially public transportation infrastructure built by the government, in a way you see fit.

You are, though. The police can stop you if they've got reasonable suspicion you're committing a crime. They can search and arrest you if they've got probable cause. Outside of that, though, we are entitled to use public spaces.

Westboro Baptist gets to protest outside of funerals. Nazis get to have parades. Street preachers get to shout at passers-by.

Fine, you are entitled to use (most) public space. You are just not entitled to use it in the way you want, depending on what you want.

Thanks to the love of Jesus, the US of A was founded before the invention of automobiles, and there's no equivalent of Second Amendment that grants, I mean, "recognizes" its citizens' inalienable right to drive motor vehicles. Driving is a privilege.

And it relies on people following the social contract around it, including not drinking and driving, and some way to actually enforce it before some drunkard runs over my kids.

If the specific strategies and actions by police are bad-faithed or ineffectual, by all means, argue about these specific points, but I'm tired of these armchair guardians of freedom who think paved roads grow on trees.

It's just people who like to drive fast acting like they're concerned about freedom in general. None of these people give a hoot when it's something that doesn't affect them.

Does anyone not see drunk driving as a serious threat to public safety?

Of course we see it as a threat to public safety. But so are lots of other things, including unchecked expansion of government power.

Drunk driving is a serious threat to public safety.

Giving the police the right to stop people without probable cause is also a serious threat to public safety.

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