SOBRIETY STOPS ARE FOUND TO CUT COSTS

Study: A checkpoint costs $1 million a year but saves $7.9 million arising
from car crash deaths and injuries.

Washington - a sobriety checkpoint program to help catch impaired drivers
is a cost effective way to reduce alcohol related automobile accidents,says
a study released Monday.

Alcohol-related crashes result in more than $100 billion a year in medical
care, emergency transportation, property damage,lost wages and other costs,
says the report, published by the Journal of Studies on Alcohol at Rutgers
University.

A community of 100,000 licensed drivers using 156 checkpoints per year
could reduce alcohol-related crashes by about 15 percent and prevent at
least one death and more than 60 nonfatal injuries, researchers found.

An average checkpoint costs about $1 million in staff, equipment and other
costs per year, the researchers found. However, each ultimately saves the
community $7.9 million, including $3.1 million by averting deaths and $4.5
million from avoiding nonfatal injuries, they said.

Checkpoints are used in 40 states and the District of Columbia.

The report was released at a news conference held by Mothers Against Drunk
Driving to caution drivers before the upcoming Labor Day weekend. The
National Safety Council predicts that about 500 Americans will die on the
nation's highways over the weekend.

Alcohol-related traffic deaths fell to a record-low proportion last year,
but still accounted for more than one-third of the fatalities, the
Transportation Department said last week. There were 16,189 such deaths in
1997, or 38.6 percent of the total. That was a decrease of about 1,000
deaths from 1996.

Copyright 1998 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski