OVI Checkpoints Miss The Point Says ABI

The American Beverage Institute is an industry-sponsored advocacy group that has stood up to Mother Against Drunk Drivers and their campaing for government funded OVI checkpoints. The beverage group says that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) should back off from the roadblocks and instead support roving patrols to catch heavy drinkers. “By promoting sobriety checkpoints, MADD and NHTSA are ignoring the root cause of today’s drunk driving problem – hard core alcohol abusers,” ABI managing director Sarah Longwell said in a statement.”Because they are highly visible by design and publicized in advance, roadblocks are all too easily avoided by the chronic alcohol abusers who comprise the core of today’s drunk driving problem,” Longwell said. “That leaves adults who enjoyed a beer while watching a game or a glass of wine with dinner to be harassed at checkpoints.”

As a Dayton OVI attorney, I have been fighting OVI checkpoint for twenty years. We can, and should, join other states in banning checkpoints and focusing on arresting the people who are causing the most harm on our roads. Let’s let good police officers make good arrests based on the long-held values of the American Constitution.

If you want to know why we notify people of OVI Checkpoints with text message alerts watch our video.