Here’s a fairly ridiculous example of an ill-conceived plan:

TUCSON, Ariz. — A plan by the Pima County Sheriff's Department that would have stationed deputies at fast-food joints to sniff out drunken drivers appears to have fallen flat.

The department had hoped to target drunken driving by putting undercover deputies inside 24-hour fast-food restaurants to spot impaired drivers placing their orders. If deputies spotted someone with classic symptoms of impairment, they were to call a uniformed deputy stationed outside to pull the driver over.

But sheriff's Lt. Karl Woolridge says the department asked various fast-food chains if they'd agree to be a part of the program, but all of them declined.

Asking fast food drive-thru operators if they’d be willing to let the police hang out by the window in the middle of the night to arrest only the customers who appear to be under the influence of some sort of substance is like asking head shop owners if they’d be willing to let the police in to bust only the customers who aren’t actually going to observe the tobacco use only signs posted throughout the place. If they did it, they’d have no customers at all.

Anyway, what’s really silly about this is that it’s not the sort of thing that’ll have any impact on drunk driving. It’ll just have an impact on what drunk drivers eat. The odds of someone saying, “I know I really want a Carl’s Jr. burger at two-thirty this morning, I’d better not drink tonight” are pretty small. All a program like this would really accomplish would be to tell drunk drivers that the odds of getting stopped for DWI have just shrunk if they steer clear of the local Taco Bell. Thankfully, old-fashioned economics from the restaurateurs (if you can call someone who runs an A&W that) nixed this one.

Labels: crime prevention, dwi

posted by Dan   permalink   0 Comments