No roadblock for the patron saint of travelers
By: Ken Garcia
Examiner Staff Writer
03/17/09 1:41 PM PDT
On this very special day of national pub crawling, it's good to know that you have someone looking over your shoulder.
And that would be the industry trade backers at the American Beverage Institue, who have issued a plea to the country's law enforcement agencies not to put up a bunch of sobriety checkpoints to nab St. Patrick's Day revelers.
According to the ABI, roadblocks have proven ineffective and "fail to target'' the real problem, which is chronic alcohol abusers.
I believe a few of them might be among the celebrants today, but why quibble? Beverage industry officials say that sobriety checkpoints more often than not target moderate, responsible drinkers and that roving patrols are much more successful in catching drunk drivers, speeders and those people who should definitely not be talking on hand-held cell phones.
"Because they are highly visible by design and publicized in advance, roadblocks are all too easily avoided by the chronic alcohol abusers who comprise the core of today's drunk driving problem,'' according to a release issued by the ABI today.
And to that we propose a toast and a cautionary word to please be careful out there.
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