'Booze It and Lose It' campaign seeks safer roads

It'll be like shooting pickled fish in a barrel.

Law enforcement officers across the state have announced another "Booze It and Lose It" campaign during the Independence Day holiday week. They want you to know they'll be stopping cars at roadblocks to check for alcohol- and drug-impaired drivers.

You might think the publicity would scare drunks away, and this tactic would come up dry.

Oh no. These well-publicized campaigns netted the arrests of 12,500 motorists across North Carolina on DWI charges last year. In four hours at one checkpoint last month, Wake County deputies snagged 15 drivers on DWI charges and issued 13 other alcohol and marijuana charges.

"Common sense would tell you that you've probably saved the impaired driver from harm or an innocent person from harm," said Darrell Jernigan, director of the Governor's Highway Safety Program. "Any time you can take the impaired driver off the highways, you've protected public safety."

Studies back this up, pointing to results that go beyond arrest statistics. Sobriety checkpoints reduce alcohol-related traffic deaths by as much as 20 percent, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

So what's with this organization in Washington that blasts the safety agency several times a year -- and claims it has proof that sobriety checkpoints are no good?

It's the "thank you for drinking" lobby, the American Beverage Institute.

The group represents "restaurants committed to the responsible serving of adult beverages." It acknowledges getting money from beer, wine and liquor makers.

John Doyle, the group's executive director, says restaurants that promote "drinking responsibly" believe sobriety checkpoints target moderate drinkers unfairly, while dangerous drunks get away.

"It is legal to drink responsibly and drive," Doyle said. "You're taking officers off the road to quiz these safe drivers, and you're leaving drunk drivers on the road who avoid the roadblock."

An American Beverage Institute news release cited a "landmark" study by the National Traffic Safety Administration as proof that "roving police patrols" are more than three times more likely to apprehend drunken drivers than roadblocks.

The Road Worrier asked for a copy.

The study was conducted in six California towns in the early 1990s, focusing on whether roadblocks could be effective even with minimal staffing. One town that assigned officers to a roving patrol reported about three times as many arrests as the four towns that used roadblocks.

But the numbers went the other way in measuring the impact on traffic deaths and injuries. After the DWI campaigns ended, alcohol played a part in fewer accidents than it had the year before, in all six towns.

Nobody wants to find himself staring into a deputy's flashlight at a "Booze It and Lose It" roadblock tonight, on the way home after fireworks and a beer -- or a ginger ale, for that matter.

But it seems little to pay for a program that has helped make our roads safer.

Move over, further

If you see a vehicle on the highway shoulder ahead with a flashing light -- blue, red or amber -- you have some new reasons to slow down and, if you can do so safely, switch lanes.

Legislative changes that took effect July 1 add stiffer penalties to the state's "Move Over" law and broaden its scope.

Troopers, rescue workers and other emergency and law enforcement professionals sometimes are killed or hurt by careless drivers while they are doing their jobs along the roadside. Motorists who fail to slow down (two-lane road) or switch to another lane to reduce the risk of this kind of accident now can be fined $250.

The law previously did not cover the folks with flashing amber lights -- tow-truck operators or drivers of the Department of Transportation's Incident Management Assistance Patrol trucks, who frequently park in harm's way to shield troopers and rescue workers at crash scenes.

Now it does.