If It Works, Kill It
When Rick Berman and his crew of dissemblers at the American Beverage Institute (ABI) come out energetically against an intervention, you can bet on two things:
1. The intervention has been demonstrated to be effective in reducing alcohol-related problems.
2. Regardless, they have identified a public relations angle they believe they can exploit.
Sure enough, as JoinTogether reports, ABI is attacking sobriety checkpoints under the guise of protecting “harassed” drivers.
The facts: the Task Force on Community Preventive Services recommends sobriety checkpoints “based on strong evidence of their effectiveness in reducing alcohol-impaired driving, alcohol-related crashes, and associated fatal and nonfatal injuries.”
Summary evidence tables for the evaluation are here.
Roving patrols, on the other hand, may or may not be effective. According to the authors of a Cochrane systematic review, existing evidence was “supportive” but did not “firmly establish whether increased police patrols … reduce the adverse consequences of alcohol-impaired driving.”
Of course, if the goal is to ensure industry profits – while appearing to be just concerned enough to fend off government regulators – then half-measures are just what the doctor ordered.
References:
Goss, C. W., Van Bramer, L. D., Gliner, J. A., Porter, T. R., Roberts, I. G., & Diguiseppi, C. (2008). Increased police patrols for preventing alcohol-impaired driving. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (Online), (4), CD005242. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD005242.pub2.
Guide to Community Preventive Services (2001). Reducing alcohol-impaired driving: Sobriety checkpoints. Retrieved on December 3, 2009 from http://www.thecommunityguide.org/mvoi/AID/sobrietyckpts.html.
