Drivers encounter reality checkpoint
Last month's 18-day drunk driving crackdown, cleverly dubbed "Avoid the 14," as in, avoid Ventura County's 14 different law enforcement agencies, took 287 DUI suspects off our roads and freeways and away from the harm they might have caused friends and loved ones.

The operation, which began Dec. 15 and ended New Year's Day, also netted drug offenders, drivers without proper licenses and those with outstanding warrants.

The goal of the operation was to prevent people from being injured or killed by drunk drivers. In that mission, law enforcement succeeded: a perfect zero in the county's DUI fatality column.

But the intense campaign brings into question one of the chief tools used in fighting drunk driving: the sobriety checkpoint.

In all, four checkpoints were set up during the three-week crackdown: one in Fillmore, one in Simi Valley, one in Moorpark and one in Oak View on Highway 33. The results: 3,058 drivers detained or questioned, but only four arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

By far, the greatest amount of activity dealt with vehicle code violations which, while against the law, hardly deserve the same attention as drunk driving.

Sobriety checkpoints are easy to appreciate from afar, but can be unnerving when experienced firsthand. Drivers who are questioned by a uniformed officer and given a field sobriety test when they may, in fact, be innocent, find themselves caught in a frightening and frustrating situation.

Everybody wants to see DUI suspects taken off our roads, but when it comes to sobriety checkpoints, does the end always justify the means?

In the case of last month's Ventura County campaign, was the questioning of more than 3,000 citizens without probable cause worth the arrest of four drunk driving suspects, who might have been arrested anyway had the officers manning the checkpoints been patroling the highways?

Regardless of the debate over whether to use sobriety checkpoints, one undeniable fact remains: Drunk drivers are a menace to society and must be stopped.