Huntington Ensures Road Safety With Sobriety Checkpoints on Memorial Day

Are you ready for the forthcoming long weekend of Memorial Day? How is the shopping for burgers, hot dogs, and chips going on? And not to forget, the stocked cooler for your beers, pop, and wine coolers. While you are busy arranging for the weekend, the police are not far behind either. They are well-prepared too. And they certainly don’t have any picnic in mind.

What they want to do is set up sobriety checkpoints. These are basically police traffic stops that are not centric on any particular person or a specific suspicion. The locations are randomly chosen. However, the constitution demands that an officer must have a probable reason for making such a stop. And they must also publicize such checkpoints in advance so that more and more people are aware of them.

During such sobriety checkpoints, drivers are detained for a short while and interviewed following which the suspicious drivers are put through a sobriety test. The sobriety checkpoints are an attempt to basically keep the road free of inebriated drivers and thereby make the roads safer for use.

The police generally beef up the DUI patrols on those particular days which tend to be centered on alcohol, such as the Fourth of July, the Memorial Day, etc. Now the problem is not because people drink these days. The major concern is what follows this habit. Most people drink and drive which leads to serious accidents and injuries, even to the extent of fatal ones. If you ask me, a criminal defense lawyer in West Virginia who handles several DUI cases, I would only give you one piece of advice, do not drink and drive. Being in an intoxicated condition has a major impact on your judgment, disrupts your physical balance, and affects your vision. Why drink and put so many lives at risk?

If the roving patrols are not scary enough and don’t make you think of effective plans, then probably sobriety checkpoints will keep you from drunk driving. There are many such communities where such announcements have already been made.

So, for all of you who are currently residing in the Huntington area, you must be extremely cautious. There has been an announcement by the West Virginia State Police about a sobriety checkpoint being conducted tonight and in the Third Ave and 20th Street areas on Saturday.

If you ask me, in the humble opinion of a DUI defense lawyer, when and if you plan to have a party, make sure you are sober before you get the driving seat. Or else, lie down on the couch or call an emergency cab but get home safely. Believe me, it will cost you much less than actually having to hire a lawyer in order to get you through the entire court proceedings for a DUI offense.

However, in case you are caught up in any such DUI issue, you must first get in touch with a criminal defense lawyer with a substantial experience in DUI cases. He will have a better knowledge of the state laws regarding DUI. So, he will be able to guide you and give you the right advice with regard to the DUI convictions followed by the court proceedings.