Sunday, July 04, 1999
Police hope checkpoints keep drinkers off the road
Random stops aim for safer holiday
BY RACHEL MELCER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
It's a holiday weekend. Drunken drivers, beware.
Police in Batavia and Xenia stopped thousands of motorists at random Friday night to check their sobriety. In Ripley County, Ind., officers did the same after Saturday night's festivities.
They did not make many arrests — four in Batavia, and 14 in Xenia. But that's not necessarily the point.
“It's more of a public awareness program,” said Ohio State Police Sgt. John Tibbs, who helped staff the Batavia checkpoint. “We want to get the drunken drivers off the roadway, but we also want the public to know that we're aggressively pursuing it.”
Through Saturday afternoon, there had been 12 fatal crashes in Clermont County this year, killing 14 people. Of those, half were alcohol-related, said troopers with the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
A cooperative effort with the Clermont County Sheriff's Department and Union Township Police nabbed four people on driving under the influence charges Friday night.
At least two of the four face charges in addition to DUI: Kaye Pence, 57, of Bethel was also arrested on child endangerment charges. Troopers said there were three children, ages 14, 7 and 4, in her vehicle when she was stopped.
Lesley Reynolds, 35, of Hyde Park also faces charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug parapherna lia, troopers said.
In Xenia, officers from the state patrol, Centerville and Sugarcreek Township police departments and Greene County Sheriff's Department stopped 2,800 vehicles and made eight DUI arrests.
Four arrests were made for underage consumption, one for having an open container of alcohol and one for public intoxication. Details were not available Saturday night.
Drunken drivers “are a problem 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But on a holiday weekend there is more traffic ... and we get more visibility. So we make it a priority,” Sgt. Tibbs said.
While a few motorists among the many who are delayed for about 10 minutes at sobriety checkpoints complain, police say most don't mind cooperating. The public, too, is aware of the dangers of DUI.
The number of arrests made does not accurately reflect the power of checkpoints and other enforcement efforts, authorities say. Just knowing that cruising squads are watching and checkpoints are a possibility is enough to keep a lot of revelers off the road, said Indiana State Police Sgt. Dennis LeBlanc, who has been an officer for 25 years.
“It used to be that you could count on a couple of drunk drivers every weekend, and anymore, that's not the case,” he said. “There's probably just as many people who are drinking. But they're much more aware of what they're doing and using designated drivers, or just staying where they are.”
Phillip Pina contributed to this report.
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