When Should The Police Use Random Roadblocks?
Remember those movies where the ‘bad guy’ would take a driver hostage and, “Whoa! Where did that random roadblock come from?!” After some pleasantries from a naive officer, the car would be waved through and the action would continue.
I’m not sure if those were old James Cagney movies or a more contemporary Cheech & Chong flick. But I do know that the holidays are coming and that many towns and cities will be orchestrating random roadblocks to ferret out the intoxicated and the illegal.
My question to the B&B is, “When, if ever, should there be random roadblocks applied towards the driving public?”
Notice that I have no qualms with tracing down escaped convicts like the ones played by James Cagney. Or the annual ‘Where’s O.J.?’ contest. News networks do need their ratings after all.
But what about those random roadblocks where raising revenue seems to be a hidden priority? Or the ones done on busy roads in the middle of the day that severely restrict the ebb and flow of traffic?
The line should be drawn somewhere. So where should that line be?
More by Steven Lang
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Really now, how difficult is it for a functioning adult to remember to have their license and registration with them before hitting the road? How difficult is it to keep one's registration tab, or inspection tag up to date and replace your burnt out bulbs?
Random road checks is one thing, but when it amounts to an organized roadblock, that's quite another. I had the misfortune of living in Wasaga Beach, Ontario for a single year. That town used to go from a sleepy 8 or 9 thousand people in the winter months to 100,000 on the weekends. So, in April the OPP would hire quite a few extra hired guns to handle the summer crowd, and until those crowds arrived, they would literally park trucks across Mosley Street and direct every car into the Lion's Club parking lot. Every car. Every night. I would close up by shop in nearby Collingwood and drive home, and had to go through this Soviet-like experience every night. There was no alternate route, other than to by-pass the entire town and approach from the east. Sure, the old geezers that lived in that retirement community were long in bed, but the sheer violation of any form of civil rights was such an affront, that I moved by the end of the summer. (They must have grown tired of my 'this isn't Russia!' shouts, too!)
The answer to the question: NEVER. This is unreasonable search and seizure. The police should NEVER stop anyone who has not committed a crime against anyone. "Potentially" committing a crime is no justification for trampling on our freedoms to freely move about our country. I've even started to rethink our DUI laws. DUI is a complicated thing - everyone handles medication and drink differently, and everyone's driving skill is also different, yet we pull people over and punish them for "potentially" harming another. We need bad driver laws - not drunk driver laws. We are stupid to think that we can prevent tragedies on the road by trampling all over the freedoms of everyone. Random stops for "potential harm" are not the answer. Punishment for actually harming someone is the answer.
zerofoo: "Random stops for “potential harm” are not the answer. Punishment for actually harming someone is the answer." It's nice in theory, but many countries do have valid laws for potential harm, even if none was actually caused. Attempted murder charges are one where even if the victim has absolutely no harm done the perpetrator can be convicted. In Australia we have DUI breath testing stations set up, mostly on weekends. Most are located behind corners or over the crest of a hill so they can't be seen from a mile away and avoided. Drivers are wise to the tactics therefore police do randomly chase down and stop drivers at 3am for a breath test. I had one done recently. The sad reality is that some drivers do choose to down 5 beers and then go for a drive. 'I'm Mr Fantastic and I can drive!' they say to themselves, as they slur the words and drop the car keys. How else are these people meant to be caught before they T-bone someone or slam into a pedestrian? Some people suggest waiting until the DUI driver causes an accident and then arresting them, but isn't that a little too late for the unfortunate individual the DUI driver has mowed down?