Wilkes-Barre's public square comes alive on Friday and Saturday evenings as people hop in and out of local bars, exercising their right to party. But the reality behind all of this fun is that 2,007 Pennsylvanians died in car accidents involving intoxicated drivers in the year 2008 alone, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Because of the abundance of nightlife activities in and around Public Square, there is an increased risk for drunk driving, especially on weekends. According to pennlive.com, there were 16,156 D.U.I arrests in the state of Pennsylvania last year alone. And yet, there are few D.U.I checkpoints in and around the city on any given weekend.
The city's checkpoints need to occur more often. Having D.U.I. checkpoints within a half mile radius in any of the four directions of Public Square in Wilkes-Barre would serve as a deterrent from driving under the influence. Drunk driving checkpoints are usually set up near and around every popular holiday. Checkpoints shouldn't only happen during holidays, though. Anytime the bars are hopping on a downtown Wilkes-Barre weekend, there should be sobriety checkpoints performed within its vicinity.
On September 5, two days before Labor Day, The Times Leader reported that a man damaged three separate vehicles while driving his truck and fled from a fender bender on the corner of South Main and West South Streets in front of the UCOM building. Luckily, no persons were fatally injured in the D.U.I. hit and run. Next time, however, the parties involved may not be so lucky. I expect that anyone who would like to experience Wilkes-Barre's nightlife and live to tell about it would be in support of additional checkpoints.
The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control calculated that D.U.I./Sobriety checkpoints reduce the possibility of an alcohol related crash by 20 percent. Instead of just having them as a reality check for every holiday, D.U.I. checkpoints should be set up every weekend here in Wilkes-Barre.
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I understand your concern for the citizens of Wilkes Barre, PA. However, my concern is the structure of the checkpoints that you formulate in your article. Setting up checkpoints in that manner nearly acknowledges that square as a hot zone or even maybe a target area. By targeting the square you are isolating or even entrapping the individuals within that area. Lets first look at the definition of entrapment. According to Princeton Law, entrapment is defined as "action by law enforcement personnel to lead an otherwise innocent person to commit a crime, in order to arrest and prosecute that person for the crime." The action in this case is the checkpoints and someone who is barely over the legal limit could quite possibly drive fine. However, he/she would be committing a crime even though his/her judgment may not be impaired enough to cause neglect or bodily injury. If the city of Wilkes Barre took your advice the conviction rate of DUI's would certainly skyrocket, but the nightlife may suffer and deter people away from Wilkes-Barre, causing venues to lay of workers and quite possibly close down. I think the answer is more police officers patrolling the square via car, bike, and on foot with a mixture of checkpoints throughout the city not targeting the square specifically. By targeting the square you target the reason Wilkes Barre still exists.... the students. If someone sat a half a mile from your house every weekend and waited for you to come home to see if u were over the legal limit, you may feel like your rights as a United States citizen have been violated. Also, by increasing DUI checkpoints you will be decreasing the amount of police officers throughout the city. Wilkes Barre can be very dangerous place not just in the square, by isolating the police officers to the square you are really isolating the citizens of Wilkes Barre itself. Response time is everything in police work and could save or cost a life. By having more police officers spread out throughout the city, the response time could quite possibly be much faster and possibly save a life or prevent criminal activity. Finally, the every weekend commit is crazy it must be done randomly once a month on top of what they are doing at this point.
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