Showing posts with label dui checkpoints kc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dui checkpoints kc. Show all posts

Friday, December 24, 2010

DUI Checkpoints in KC - December 23rd, 24th, 25th

Holiday Weekend DUI Checkpoints in Kansas City
by Kansas City News

Well, the holiday weekend is upon us, and with it comes the police.  Kansas City's finest will be out in full force over the holiday weekend on December 23rd, 24th and 25th.  Please try not to drink too much if you're going to drive this weekend - nothing would put a damper on the holiday weekend than a DUI and a few hours in jail.

DUI charges are no longer easy to deal with.  In the old days, as our old friend and retired lawyer Robert A. would tell you, you could get 4 or 5 DUI convictions and still have a license.  Today, you are pretty much allowed 1 DUI, and even 1 is going to suck.  You're talking about spending the night in jail, possibly having your car impounded for up to 1 year, losing your license, paying around $1500 total (not including the lawyer), going to traffic school, and then finally going on probation for about 2 years.  Sound fun?  Well then stay home if you're going to drink this weekend, because they WILL be setting up checkpoints.

Common DUI checkpoint areas in Kansas City include anywhere along Southwest Trafficway, anywhere along Ward Parkway but particularly at 79th Street or 77th Street.  There will be checkpoints somewhere along Wornall Road, most commonly around 75th Street, or as far south as 93rd Street just as you round the corner to head south to the stoplight at 95th street.

Friday, November 19, 2010

DUI Checkpoints Kansas City - November 19th & 20th

Checkpoints in Kansas City - DUI Checkpoints in KC for Nov 19th and November 20th
by Kansas City News

Well, the weekend is here again and it's time for our weekly Kansas City DUI checkpoint update.  Remember that it now does absolutely no good to refuse to take the breathalyzer or field sobriety test as police now have the authority from the Supreme Court to physically take a blood sample from you at the scene if you're suspected of driving under the influence.  The best option if you've been drinking is to muster up as much sobriety as you can, be honest with the police - "yes sir I've had a couple drinks tonight but quit drinking over and hour ago so that I would be safe to drive" - do NOT lie to them and tell them that you haven't been drinking.  I don't know if you've ever been around someone who is drinking, or has been drinking that day - if you have not had anything to drink (like police officers) then you can smell alcohol on their breath a MILE away.  Once you roll down your window the officer can smell alcohol even if you've only had ONE drink.  Do not lie as that angers them, just tell them that you are good to drive and that you are going STRAIGHT home and they will let you go 9 times out of 10.  At DUI checkpoints the police are really only looking for those people who are CLEARLY intoxicated.  Just be straight with them and look them in the eye, you will be fine.

DUI checkpoints in KC tonight will be in the usual places:

Anywhere along Ward Parkway - especially if you're headed south from the plaza.  Most often they set up a checkpoint at either 77th and Ward Parkway or at some point near the plaza.

Avoid Southwest Trafficway all together.  Typically they will set a checkpoint up near the Sunfresh or near the Broadway intersection.

Another road to avoid is Wornall Road - they usually set up checkpoints at 77th and Wornall in the Waldo area every weekend.  If you're partying at the Brooksider or at The Well your best bet is to grab Main Street or Oak and crawl your way North or South whichever way you are headed.  I've also seen them set up checkpoints at 93rd and Wornall just as you round the turn headed towards the 95th Street intersection.  It's a blind curve and it was just made for DUI Checkpoints.  My old friend Johnny Cartsonis wrecked my friends IROC Z on that very curve and took out a tree - he walked away from the wreck but alas the IROC did not.

Friday, November 12, 2010

DUI Checkpoints in Kansas City - Blood Test New Law

Dui Checkpoints in Kansas City November 12th, 13th and the New Blood Test Law in Missouri
by Kansas City News

DUI checkpoints will be in full force this weekend, November 12th and 13th as usual in Kansas City and the surrounding suburbs including Lee's Summit, Independence, Overland Park and other areas.

A new law has been passed that states that the police will be able to take a blood sample test from drivers refusing to take a breathalizer test or other DUI checkpoint field sobriety tests.  Before the new law went into effect, police could only obtain blood samples from suspected DUI drivers if they had a warrant.  This is actually not a new Missouri law pertaining to blood tests on DUI suspects, it is actually just a lift on a former prohibition that required Missouri police to obtain a warrant before extracting a blood sample.  This change to the Missouri DUI law came after the Supreme Court ruled that it was legal for police officers to take blood samples on the spot if someone is suspected of a DUI and refuses to take a breathalizer test.

Expect DUI checkpoints this weekend in the following areas:

Anywhere along Ward Parkway but especially around 77th Street.
Anywhere along Southwest Trafficway - anywhere.
75th and Wornall
93rd and Wornall
Noland Road - anywhere

The following is a report that recently came out about DUI checkpoints in and around Kansas City:

If you were driving one of the 18,747 vehicles Kansas City police stopped at drunken-driving checkpoints last year, odds are you weren’t arrested.
 
In fact, only 1.6 percent of those drivers were arrested for being drunk.  Police departments around the Kansas City area and the country spend thousands of dollars a year on DUI checkpoints with similar results. While police defend checkpoints as a great public relations tool against drunken driving, there are better ways to catch drunken drivers, experts say.
 
Take saturation patrols, where police cruise city streets in search of swerving cars that may be driven by drunks. They are cheaper to conduct and more efficient — for each car that police officers stop, they are almost four times as likely to catch a drunk.
 
Five of the larger area police departments stopped 25,510 vehicles at checkpoints last year, but only 2,765 during saturation patrols. Both efforts produced arrests — traffic tickets, but also outstanding warrants, drug violations and alcohol-related offenses such as driving with an open container. In fact, saturation patrols yielded more charges — 3,100 — than the number of cars stopped. The total arrest rate for the checkpoints: 2.8 percent.  And the saturation patrols cost $31.68 per ticket or arrest. The checkpoint price tag? $184.84.
 
Taxpayers question checkpoints’ rate of return. Cliff Jones of Raytown reads about checkpoint results when they’re published in the newspaper and wonders if they are an efficient way to catch drunken drivers.  “I’m not against them at all, but I am for efficiency, and there is a certain amount of manpower that it takes off the street. And it makes you wonder, is there a better way of doing it?” he said.  Police concede that checkpoints don’t catch a lot of drunken drivers. The statistics don’t reflect the lives saved by those who chose a designated driver because they knew a checkpoint awaited them, they say “Regardless of how small the number is, you’re still taking a dangerous driver off the street, and that’s still a person who could have injured an innocent driver during their drinking episode,” said Police Capt. Rich Lockhart of Kansas City.
 
You’re driving home late on a Friday night and you spot a line of cars stopped ahead. The flashing lights, warning signs and the large police command post confirm what you feared: You’ve entered a DUI checkpoint.
 
You might get waved through. Officers — 30 to 40 of them —stop cars in a predetermined pattern, say every car, every third car or every fifth car. When it’s your turn, an officer checks your license, maybe checks your record for outstanding warrants and asks whether you’ve been drinking. An officer leans into your car window with a flashlight that may be equipped with alcohol sensors. If the cop thinks you’re drunk, you’re pulled over for more tests, including a breath analysis.  And here is the problem police grapple with: Traffic deaths caused by drunken drivers haven’t changed much in the past 10 years, both nationally and locally. Kansas has seen some improvement. Missouri’s alcohol fatality rate for every mile driven remains above the national average.
 
Critics such as Sarah Longwell, spokeswoman for the American Beverage Institute, argue that deaths due to drunken drivers dipped more in states that don’t do checkpoints than in states that do conduct DUI checkpoints.  For example, the nation saw a slight decrease in alcohol-related fatal crashes from 2003 to 2004, but 96 percent of the decrease came in the 11 states that do not allow checkpoints but do use saturation patrols, among other efforts, Longwell said.  “Every one of the 11 non-roadblock states saw a decline in alcohol-related fatalities, while almost half of the roadblock states saw an increase in alcohol-related fatalities,” she said. “The number one problem with these checkpoints is that they are costly, and they are not keeping us safe.”
 
Checkpoints fare worst with habitual drunken drivers, critics said.  Problem drunken drivers “just take a different way home,” said Cole Casey, a San Diego attorney with the National College for DUI Defense, which educates attorneys about DUI law and the science of intoxication. That includes “pseudoscientific areas such as field sobriety testing,” according to its Web site.  A 1997 North Carolina study showed that officers failed to catch more than half the drivers passing through a checkpoint with a blood alcohol content higher than .08 percent. After checkpoint officers deemed the drivers sober and let them drive on, researchers interviewed the drivers and took voluntary breath samples.  “People who are repeat drunk drivers are able to get through,” said O’Donnell, the John Jay College professor. “It would be a giant myth that if you are drunk and you are stopped at a checkpoint that you’re going to get arrested. That might come as a surprise.”
 
Critics such as Longwell want to swap DUI checkpoints for saturation patrols.  “If we’re diverting money to checkpoints, that leaves less for saturation patrols, which also can catch speeders and some idiot swerving while on his cell phone,” Longwell said.
 
Unlike checkpoints, saturation patrols are mobile and cover areas a checkpoint can’t, like a busy highway. Officers working a saturation patrol can only stop cars for a reason: weaving, speeding and other traffic violations.
For example, from October 2006 through September 2007, Independence police spent $31,875 on checkpoints, where they stopped 3,091 cars and made 63 drunken-driving arrests and 66 arrests for other violations, including warrants and drug possession. That’s an arrest rate for all violations of about 4.2 percent at a cost of $247.09 for each arrest.  During the same time, they spent $81,878.54 on saturation patrols, where they stopped 2,253 cars and made arrests or wrote tickets for 2,575 violations, including 110 for drunken driving. That’s an arrest rate of 114 percent, at a cost of $31.79 per offense.  A U.S. Department of Transportation report concluded: “If making a large number of (drunken driving) arrests is an objective, (the data) clearly suggests that roving patrols would be the preferred method.”  That’s why some police departments, like the sheriff’s department in Ohio County, W.Va., have stopped doing checkpoints in favor of more saturation patrols.
 
“I’m no big fan of them,” Chief Deputy Pat Butler said about checkpoints. “They’re OK for informational purposes, but I think DUI saturation patrols are much more effective.”  Most DUI arrests are made by officers on routine patrol. But for special drunken-driving enforcement, most Kansas City area police departments use both checkpoints and saturation patrols.  But one, the Lee’s Summit Police Department, is rethinking checkpoints. They are doing more saturation patrols and fewer, smaller checkpoints.  Lee’s Summit officers now participate in the larger checkpoints only while working with the Jackson County Traffic Safety Task Force.  When working on their own, they conduct low-impact checkpoints, a concept that police departments nationwide are beginning to use.  Instead of using 30 to 40 officers, these small-scale roadblocks use about six. The officers set up for a short period of time, maybe 90 minutes, at a specific time and location where they have seen lots of accidents or drunken driving.  “It’s like a precision instrument,” said Capt. Kevin Reaves.
 
A 2005 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety concluded that these low-impact checkpoints can be conducted safely with as few as three to five officers and for as little as $300 to $400.  The study also showed that they were just as effective as the larger, more costly checkpoints.
 
During a low-impact checkpoint in 2006, Lee’s Summit officers stopped 83 vehicles and had a 7 percent DUI arrest rate, compared with a 1.35 percent arrest rate last year at a large-scale checkpoint that Lee’s Summit conducted with the county traffic task force.  Staffing shortages have made it difficult for Lee’s Summit police to staff a lot of small-scale checkpoints, Reaves said. Sometimes it’s more efficient to organize a large-scale checkpoint using the resources of the county traffic task force, which includes a couple of Lee’s Summit officers.  “You have to look at the allocation of resources,” Reaves said. “We’re not just here to burn money.”
 
Checkpoints vs. saturation patrols - At checkpoints, up to 40 police officers stop cars in a predetermined pattern. Drivers may be asked to submit to tests if they are suspected of drunken driving. In saturation patrols, officers search for cars that appear to be operated by drunken drivers.  Kansas City police will conduct two DUI saturation patrols this holiday weekend as part of a Missouri campaign to stop drunken driving.

Friday, September 10, 2010

DUI Checkpoints in Kansas City Sept 10th, 11th

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DUI Checkpoints in Kansas City September 10th, 11th

Well, it's the weekend again and it's time to look out for the DUI checkpoints in Kansas City, Overland Park, Lee's Summit, Liberty, Prairie Village and all of our lovely Kansas City neighborhoods where people will be getting wasted and driving around.

There are a few events going on this weekend that may trigger some DUI checkpoints that may not have been there on a normal Sept 10th or 11th.   The Prairie Village Jazz Festival will be going on on Sept 11th and will attract some more police attention than usual in Prairie Village (if there could possibly be more police attention in Prairie Village) so there could be a checkpoint around 83rd and Mission.

Other than that, the DUI checkpoints in Kansas City will probably be in the usual places:  77th and Wornall, Ward Parkway where it stems off into Kansas around 77th Street, anywhere on Southwest Trafficway and possibly a few dotted around Overland Park, Lee's Summit, Liberty and Prairie Village.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Checkpoints in Kansas City - Labor Day Weekend - Sept 5th

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Checkpoints in Kansas City - Labor Day Weekend - Sept 5th

As we mentioned earlier in our article about Kansas City DUI Checkpoints, the Kansas City Police Department have made no secrets about the fact that they will be out in force pretty much every weekend conducting checkpoints.

Due to a grant from the Federal Government which was put in place to weed out those driving with suspended licenses or outstanding warrants which most likely stemmed from a fatal car accident that claimed the life of a 12 year old boy on 71 highway (the ghetto highway) and Gregory that involved Clayton R. Dunlap and Damian Slayton, KCPD is now conducting more DUI checkpoints in Kansas City than ever before.  The leftover funding from this grant is now going towards putting up DUI checkpoints pretty much every weekend in Kansas City.

Again, for Labor Day weekend including September 5th and 6th, the most likely dui checkpoint areas in Kansas City will be 77th and Wornall, anywhere on Southwest Trafficway, on Ward Parkway where it splits off into Kansas at 77th Street or where Ward Parkway merges with Wornall Road around 93rd Street.  Avoid Westport all together as it is swarming with ghetto thugs riding around in their stolen cars with "temporary tags" and playing idiotic boom boom music.

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