For the second year in a row McHenry County DUI arrests are down.  Now the Sheriff suggests that the visiting Illinois State Police SET (Seatbelt, Speeding) enforcement team are the reason, but wouldn’t the presence of such a team increase the number of arrests.  (Unless everyone out there knew this team existed and took preventitive measures to reduce their drunken driving, which I think is unlikely for two reasons: first, you all didn’t even know they were here (unless they gave you a ticket), and second I don’t believe that people change their behavior for fear of the increased chance of being arrested.)

Now I do believe that people make some adjustments for days like St. Paddys Day, Memorial and Labor Day weekends, etc.  But if we look at the numbers, those days just don’t add that many DUI arrests.  It is not as if the weekend before Memorial Day there are 12 DUIs and Memorial Day Weekend there are 200, the numbers are more like there are 12 DUIs the weekend before, and there are 20 on Memorial Day weekend.  And actually there are usually double the arrests on the first warm weekend (which I predict will be this weekend), but nobody in law enforcement has figured that out yet.  Also another big DUI weekend is first snowfall with freezing rain.

I maintain that the numbers of DUI arrests are related to the econonmy, gas prices and the “no smoking” in bar rules.  We saw a huge drop in DUI arrests over the last two years when gas went to $4 and the no smoking in bars rule was adopted.

I believe that the number of DUIs is due to drop as soon as they stop the SET teams (mostly due to budget cutbacks). So 2010 will turn out to be a low number DUI year.  The reason that I say this, is that the legislature has tried to stop DUI by increasing the penalties for DUI for over 35 years, and each year the DUI arrest statistics increased by about 5 percent.  So that’s how good “more legislation” is.

I look forward to a time when we will look to statistics and scientific evidence to create laws rather than emotion and special interest.

BTW, what exactly does MADD do with all that money they get every year?

Ray Flavin