Saturday night police traffic jam

[Barrie]

I spent some time Saturday evening waiting in the traffic jam in downtown Sebastopol while the police made everyone stop and show their driver's licenses as they headed east out of Sebastopol.

It is strange to me that as the county is too poor to keep the Orenda Center open to provide prevention and treatment of alcoholism they have enough money to run these labor/equipment intensive check points. This is not how I want to live! I don't want California, the USA to be a police state, but that seems to be where we are headed. Now there is much more money going into the jails than to schools. People tolerate the inconvenience and intimidation of the check points because we are bullied into thinking it will keep us safe. It's like making us all take off our shoes and be inspectedwhen we get on the airplane, yet cargo gets on totally uninspected. It is intimidation, not safety. When I lived in Finland they were extremely careful not to drink and drive, but I never saw a police check point. People there drink a lot but they don't drink and drive.

I have written to our supervisor, Mr. Carrillo expressing my concern.

Barrie

[Cheingrand]

When I lived in Finland they were extremely careful not to drink and drive, but I never saw a police check point. People there drink a lot but they don't drink and drive.
Barrie

Finland has 4.5 million vehicles and 3.4 million licensed drivers. Finland has drunk drivers. Finland takes drunk driving very seriously, to the point that every person stopped by the police is tested with a breathalyzer -- regardless of the reason for being stopped. In a report of the National Traffic Police of Finland, it was noted that they administered 2 million breath tests in 2005 and 1.75 million breath tests in 2006. There remains a problem of drunk drivers despite this vigilance and mandatory jail terms.

For a look at what may be a sobriety checkpoint in Finland and the chase of a drunk driver, see YouTube - Finnish police chase a drunk driver - Poliisi jahtaa 3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQRYrDkB-ys&feature=related)

[Barry]

I spent some time Saturday evening waiting in the traffic jam in downtown Sebastopol while the police made everyone stop and show their driver's licenses as they headed east out of Sebastopol....

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/images/logo2.gif

Multiple arrests at Sebastopol DUI checkpoint

By RANDI ROSSMANN ([email protected])
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Monday, August 31, 2009 at 7:42 a.m.

In the continuing effort to get dangerous drivers off Sonoma County streets, officers arrested three suspected drunken drivers and several others for driving offenses in a Sebastopol checkpoint Saturday night.

The checkpoint caught drivers heading into and out of Sebastopol on Highway 12 from 6 p.m. Saturday to 1 a.m. Sunday, reported Petaluma police Sgt. Ken Savano, spokesman for the multi-agency effort.
Officers were stationed east of Highway 116, on the route into downtown Sebastopol.

In all, 3,013 vehicles went through the checkpoint and 2,863 were screened for signs of intoxication, reported Savano.

From those, 71 drivers were further evaluated, Savano said.

Officers arrested three for suspected drunken driving, three for driving with a suspended license and five for being an unlicensed driver.

Three others were cited for having open containers of alcohol in their car.

Officers had nine vehicles towed and impounded for 30 days.

[Braggi]

... In the continuing effort to get dangerous drivers off Sonoma County streets ... 3,013 vehicles went through the checkpoint and 2,863 were screened for signs of intoxication ... Officers arrested three for suspected drunken driving ...

Sounds like a colossal waste of money and community goodwill. How many of those 2,860 innocent people are now completely pissed over the inconvenience and intimidation they suffered? I can't blame them.

Ridiculous. How many officers were involved? How many drunk drivers would they have caught had the been out on the roads doing their jobs? "Multiagency?" What does that mean? How many agencies does it take to arrest three drunks? I'll bet they would have caught more than three had they been on their jobs and they could have caught a few reckless drivers and speeders as well. Bet they would have brought in more money for the state had they been out there writing tickets instead of setting up rubber cones.

But that's just what's obvious on its face without giving it much thought. I'd like to hear from a police officer to see if I've overestimated their ordinary abilities on an ordinary night. I don't think so.

-Jeff

[Juggledude]

Not sure about the effectiveness, but I went through that mess after leaving Sushi Hana about 9pm on Saturday...

As for multiagency, we saw CHP, Sebastopol PD, and the main paddy wagon trailer and several officers were marked Petaluma PD. Strange, the only other sobriety checkpoint i've encountered in the last 10 years was about 3 months ago in Petaluma.

The traffic wasn't all that bad, and the chance to interact with a peace officer up close and in person was an enjoyable aspect of the experience, these guys by and large are good people doing a great service. He made friends with our dog, admired my fiance's cleavage and bade us a good night, after handing us a 5x7" card glossy printed with the exorbitant cost associated with a DUI. Which, I must ruefully admit, I tossed into a landfill bound container the next day instead of doing my green duty and recycling the detrius of our overbearing and increasingly authoritative police state.

The pictures in my head of WWII movies and my outrage at the SS commandos stopping people at random and demanding their "papers" which were part of my youth still won't stop. Are we become that which we so recently despised? Is the memory of the people actually so short, or so fickle, or perhaps so stuffed full of the latest episodes and preseason football that they just don't care? Driving drunk is dangerous, and needs to be stopped. Somewhere in our laws, however, there is some reference to a check and balance method called "probable cause"... please, input on how that applies to this type of roadblock?

respectfully,

Royce



Sounds like a colossal waste of money and community goodwill. How many of those 2,860 innocent people are now completely pissed over the inconvenience and intimidation they suffered? I can't blame them.

Ridiculous. How many officers were involved? How many drunk drivers would they have caught had the been out on the roads doing their jobs? "Multiagency?" What does that mean? How many agencies does it take to arrest three drunks? I'll bet they would have caught more than three had they been on their jobs and they could have caught a few reckless drivers and speeders as well. Bet they would have brought in more money for the state had they been out there writing tickets instead of setting up rubber cones.

But that's just what's obvious on its face without giving it much thought. I'd like to hear from a police officer to see if I've overestimated their ordinary abilities on an ordinary night. I don't think so.

-Jeff

[Barrie]

Not sure about the effectiveness, but I went through that mess after leaving Sushi Hana about 9pm on Saturday...

As for multiagency, we saw CHP, Sebastopol PD, and the main paddy wagon trailer and several officers were marked Petaluma PD. Strange, the only other sobriety checkpoint i've encountered in the last 10 years was about 3 months ago in Petaluma.

The traffic wasn't all that bad, and the chance to interact with a peace officer up close and in person was an enjoyable aspect of the experience, these guys by and large are good people doing a great service. He made friends with our dog, admired my fiance's cleavage and bade us a good night, after handing us a 5x7" card glossy printed with the exorbitant cost associated with a DUI. Which, I must ruefully admit, I tossed into a landfill bound container the next day instead of doing my green duty and recycling the detrius of our overbearing and increasingly authoritative police state.

The pictures in my head of WWII movies and my outrage at the SS commandos stopping people at random and demanding their "papers" which were part of my youth still won't stop. Are we become that which we so recently despised? Is the memory of the people actually so short, or so fickle, or perhaps so stuffed full of the latest episodes and preseason football that they just don't care? Driving drunk is dangerous, and needs to be stopped. Somewhere in our laws, however, there is some reference to a check and balance method called "probable cause"... please, input on how that applies to this type of roadblock?

respectfully,

Royce

They arrested 3 drunk drivers, a few people with out licenses, and that was it. I wonder how much it cost per drunk driver and how many drunk drivers they would have found if they were parked here and there about the county.