Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 10, 1990 TAG: 9003102641
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But some of the hundreds of drivers stopped Friday night at a checkpoint on Virginia 114 - the first drivers in the area to christen the federally funded converted mobile home - may have had a few other choice names for it that can't be printed.
Shortly after 10 p.m., police began stopping drivers traveling along Virginia 114 just outside Christiansburg in Montgomery County.
With patrol car lights flashing and two dozen flares blazing, seven Roanoke and Montgomery county troopers stopped each car and checked the driver's license and registration. Wearing blaze-orange vests, the troopers snooped inside and out with flashlights looking for alcohol or other violations.
If a driver was suspected of drinking, he was to be taken to the 30-foot orange-and-brown striped van where he'd take a breathalyzer test.
But by 11 p.m., only a few tickets had been issued for minor traffic violations and no one had been stopped for drinking.
The closest the troopers had come was stopping a car whose passenger was carrying a mixed drink in a plastic yellow cup. Since the man wasn't seen drinking, the troopers couldn't charge him, said Sgt. Joe Peters, who supervised the checkpoint.
"We just made him dump it out," Peters said. "He was tickled to death."
And Peters was tickled with the new van, called a DUI Van.
Specially equipped for handling driving under the influence arrests, the van contains a breathalyzer and a small office for a magistrate, so people can be processed on the spot. Usually, people arrested on DUI charges must be taken to a magistrate at a sheriff's department to take the breath test and be processed.
"It saves a lot of time," Peters said.
Flanked by a small army of patrol cars, the van sat in front of John's Auto dealership atop four hydraulic lifts that jutted from underneath.
Stocked with boxes of flares, orange traffic cones, a police radio, a generator, an electric typewriter for typing reports and the breath machine, the van is the only one of its kind in the state, Peters said.
It was given to state police in Richmond in January and Friday was the first time it was used in the western half of the state. It will be transferred around the state to any department that requests it. State police in Dublin are next on the list, Peters said.
"This is the first time we've used it and I've got to find out where everything is," Peters said, kneeling under a table in search of an outlet to plug in the breathalyzer.
But while the troopers were thrilled with the efficiency of their new van, a few drivers said it was a bit of an inconvenience.
"It throws off my schedule a little bit, but its no big deal," said Tricia Manns, 19, of Pulaski, who was driving to a friend's house in Blacksburg.
Most drivers were stopped for no more than a minute and the backup never exceeded 10 cars in the first hour.
Few drivers complained about the stop, but gripes about sobriety checkpoints have been voiced by drivers and legislators across the country for years.
The issue of the constitutionality of checkpoints has been challenged in many states, according to news articles. And while most state courts have upheld police rights to conduct them, Michigan courts last year struck down the state's sobriety checkpoint program as an unconstitutional invasion of privacy.
In Virginia, while sobriety checkpoints are considered constitutional, police must follow a list of guidelines that have been drawn up by the state Supreme Court, said Dutton Olinger, a Blacksburg lawyer who has defended DUI cases.
Olinger said state case laws - specifically the 1985 case of Lowe vs. the Commonwealth in Charlottesville - give police the authority to set up these roadblocks, "but they must follow certain criteria."
Those criteria include "stopping every vehicle that comes through and checking every single person that comes through," said Susan Marchon, executive director of the New River Valley Alcohol Safety Action Program.
Marchon said the Charlottesville case allowed police there to begin a checkpoint program and the guidelines and procedures used there have since been adopted as the model for other police departments in Virginia and other states.
Police must "rationalize" the checkpoints by setting up in high-risk areas where accidents have occurred, Marchon said.
"[Virginia] 114 is a very dangerous area around here, so that's a pretty good area to set up a checkpoint," she said.
Peters said that was why that spot was chosen.
"We've had several bad crashes here and we've gotten complaints of speeding," he said. "So we felt it wouldn't be a bad idea to come out and try to curb some of that."
by CNB