An Essay on the Weak Points of Sobriety Checkpoints

The theme music for this post is provided by Walk the Moon - Anna Sun.

Ever since I was legally able to both drink and drive I have striven to never mix the two, ever.  Strategies like one-drink-per hour, or not drinking at all and enduring people whining at me (seriously, people who are drinking has the most deep seated insecurities I've ever seen when someone near them doesn't drink with them) were the bread and butter of my compliance with the law.  My opinion of sobriety checkpoints was one of cheerful compliance since I figured mere innocence was enough to protect me.  It was the same line of thinking that leads idiots to question a person's use of the 5th amendment.

All of that changed when a cop pulled me over and gave me a sobriety test while I was completely sober.  And then, tonight, a youtube spree that began with my girlfriend sending me this somehow landed me on this crazy story.  If you want to know more, your google keywords are "Couple Arrested For Asking Directions" although there is little information in the first page of google results (all I ever read) to follow up, corroborate, or cast doubt on the poor couples story.  I had a friend with a similar experience in Camden, New Jersey, though so the only thing I question is whether the Baltimore cops are just as--I'm not going to finish that sentence.  Anyway, one thing led to another and I found this surprising piece, and, well one thing led to another a second time and suddenly I was reading instructional PDFs for law enforcement agencies performing field sobriety tests, looking for weaknesses. I found one.

The rest of this post--actually this entire post--is written in the context of brainstorming possible elements of works of fiction which feature vigilantes performing illegal acts which vehicles.  Nothing written here has any connection with what anyone might do or have done in real life.

Being sober is not the magic bullet:  if you read the single-glass-of-wine story, the comparison between the sober woman's account of the bullshit tests, and the officers written account of the bullshit tests vary widely.  This makes me concerned that no matter how sober you are, the officer performing the test might decide to fail you anyway.

Quick tip:  verify which section of the alphabet they want repeated using alpha bravo codes.  For example, if he says "start at D and go to S" then you can say "Ok I'm going to start at delta and end at sierra."  Then the cop will probably be all like "NO I SAID S!  S AS IN XYLOPHONE!" and then mark down that you were being belligerent and argumentative, but at least you can rest assured that there was no confusion about which letters of the alphabet you're doing.  If there is one thing--only one thing--I remember from learning to fly, it is how to be damn clear about letters of the alphabet.  But I digress.

The best weaknesses I can find with sobriety checkpoints lie in the chase cars.  As anyone who thinks and reads about this as much as I do probably already knows, setting up a sobriety checkpoint requires a careful balance between the manpower required and the amount of traffic expected.  They are optimizing for a certain expectation of human behavior.  If you change the human behavior on a large enough scale, well, the sobriety checkpoint will experience the same scaling problems as a Large Online Retailer server that gets hit by an unexpected call pattern and tanks.

The chase cars are for catching people that try to avoid the checkpoint.  The manual I just read makes it sound like there might be some kind of obligation for the police to put up a sign warning of the checkpoint in a place where you can legally turn off.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that cops typically do the exact opposite of that.  Whatever the case, these guys aren't clowning around.  Cars, or perhaps motorcycles, are specifically designated for chasing people that wish to avoid the checkpoints.  This is where things get interesting.

Because certain cops are on chase duty while the others are busy bothering people, what we formerly thought was one resource (X cops at the checkpoint) is now two or more resources (X chase cops, Y sobriety cops, Z traffic-directing cops).  Based on the instructions I'm reading, it sounds like either it would be difficult to shift resources between roles, or switching resources between roles would cause immediate impairment of the service.

The weak link here is that the police are not expecting many people to avoid the checkpoint, because most people actually don't, which means that few cops will be allocated to the X category, and it will be easy to deplete that resource.

Depleting the X resource, unfortunately, cannot be done by one man.  However, if a critical percentage of drivers, perhaps somewhere around 30%, all avoided the checkpoint by doing an immediate (likely illegal) U-turn when the flashy lights of the checkpoint come into view, that would immediately deplete resource X.  This would mean that all of the chase cops would be busy chasing the cars that are turning around.  One possible outcome is that they simply run out of chase cars, and anyone can get out of the checkpoint simply by performing a casual U-turn and casual speed-limited getaway cruise.  Other outcomes involve officers being shifted from other duties.  This would lead to traffic backing up, or to a high number of cars making it through without being checked.  Both of these scenarios cause the checkpoint to fail.

So that's it, folks.  The optimal move we as citizens can make at a sobriety checkpoint is to drive until it is visible and then do a casual U-turn.  The downsides of this are that it only works if everyone does it, and you have to be willing to take the hit of an illegal-U-turn ticket, so there might be some tragedy-of-the-commons issues.  I'm going to refer to the brave citizens performing the casual U-turn as "ninjas."

The effectiveness of individual ninjas can be increased by increasing the amount of time every cop must spend chasing them down.  The goal here is to maximize wasted time and minimize damage to yourself, so an outright chase is not advised.  The first opportune time to drag out the event is when they first signal you to pull over.  Take your sweet time finding a safe spot, preferably wait until a public parking lot is available.  Drawing out the "interview" is ill advised because the cops probably have more experience than you in that situation and as always, it is best to literally say nothing to them.  Instead, the second opportunity can be accomplished when they ask for your documentation.  Cops don't always ask for both your insurance and registration, but they usually ask for at least one, and that is the best time to grab all of the papers in your glove compartment and go through them in a painstakingly slow manner.

Remember, though, all of this only matters with the first cop who pulls you over immediately after you evaded the checkpoint.  That is the chase cop.  That is the cop whose time you must waste.  If they switch off, and a second cop arrives to do the part where they try and incriminate you for drinking, its probably not worth it to try to waste his time.  Just fall back to your typical sobriety defense...namely being sober and not talking to them.

Ambitious ninjas could optionally drive for as long as possible under the speed limit while the cop is following them.  I was in a car with a girl who did this by accident; somehow neither of us noticed the flashy lights for a number of miles and the cop never turned on the siren.  He was super pissed, but the girl, who was crying, did not receive an extra citation for not pulling over fast enough.  Come to think of it...most of my pulling-over experience with that girl and all the times she got pulled over for allegedly speeding even though I, even as a passenger, thought she was driving slow.  Anyway.

Oh shit...I hope this would go without saying...like I shouldn't even need to write it...like if this next part is a revelation to you, you should never do this...and you're probably too dumb to drive at all:  don't give the cops any kind of clue, at all, that you are deliberately trying to waste their time.  Also, don't give them any kind of explanation about why you did a U-turn.  Literally, don't answer questions, unless they are asking about the location and status of your cars registration.  I really hope this paragraph was not news to anybody.

Also just...stay the hell away from D.C.  And Oregon.  And New Jersey.  And Baltimore, I guess.

Also, my second ticket that I got during vacation was done with a laser.  So all of my daydreaming about fancy radar devices is for naught.  Fucking lasers.  I can't come up with a...oh hello.  Apparently there are countermeasures.  Probably highly illegal.  I did just find this forum.  You know...its times like this that I wish I could just marry the internet.

Oh ok these things are called laser jammers.  I have some reading to do.

See also http://www.laserjammertests.com/


[Edit]
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[Edit]
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