Interesting side bit.....me and my buddy spoke with the motorcycle cops all night and filmed them pulling over cars that avoided the checkpoint. Not a single car that avoided the checkpoint was drunk or drinking. They simply didn't want to be inconvenienced by the checkpoint.
The police and many in the public think all opposition to checkpoints is from drunk drivers.
Its just not true.
The majority of people don't like being treated as a criminal for just driving down the road.
We don't like to sit in traffic for 30 minutes and forced to show papers and answer personal questions about our lives to strange men with guns.
Some of us even disagree that they are constitutional. In fact, 3 very wise and intelligent supreme court justices said they were unconstitutional.
Many legal scholars believe that if todays court heard Michigan vs Sitz that they would overturn it 5-4.
I don't get it - I thought that in order to pull someone over that has "avoided" a checkpoint they had to have committed a real traffic violation in the process of avoiding the checkpoint.
What is the probable cause for the stop? Avoiding a checkpoint of course is not probable cause that the person is drunk driving, or committing any other crime.
If you watch the video you can see the cars do in fact commit traffic violations. They would often go pass the parking lot and then reverse, come back and then pull into the lot. Sometimes they would make turns from two lanes over.
I watched and filmed the stops and the cars did commit violations of CA vehicle code.
In fairness to the police, the drivers were not cited if they had a valid DL and showed no signs of intoxication.
What law makes it unlawful to avoid a checkpoint?
I believe I saw a vehicle turn into the parking lot without passing it and reversing, and by turning from the proper lane. The police officer watched the vehicle to determine whether the vehicle was going to one of the businesses there, or just going out the other side of the lot. As soon as he realized they were going out the other side of the lot, he went to go pull them over. They committed no traffic violation, they only avoided the checkpoint.
Just one more of the many reasons I live in Idaho, DUI checkpoints are verboten.
In the video at 00:37 you can see a no right turn sign attached to a barricade just before the entrance to the parking lot. In Cali, police placing such a temporary sign makes it a traffic violation (RAS) by simply turning into the parking lot?
In the video at 00:37 you can see a no right turn sign attached to a barricade just before the entrance to the parking lot. In Cali, police placing such a temporary sign makes it a traffic violation (RAS) by simply turning into the parking lot?
They are illegal in NV, too, so they do them anyway but call them "administrative roadblocks" in all official paperwork. But they still call it a DUI checkpoint, brazenly, in open conversation, and they routinely violate state laws on how they must be signed and set up in order to eliminate the possibility of people avoiding them.
Because of this, what very few actual drunks who get caught in them are quickly contacted by lawyers and get off. The state and the lawyer get money. Guess why the lawyers don't tell the LEOs they are violating the law?
As mentioned, there isn't one.
But there are so many traffic laws, they need only watch you for a few minutes before finding a "legitimate" reason to stop and detain you. In many cases of avoiding the checkpoint, someone will do an illegal u-turn, cross too many lanes, or use a parking lot to avoid traffic control.