Roadblocks effective against drunk drivers

‘Sooner or later, you’ll get caught,’ police warn

BY DENNIS WILKEN

TGI

Staff Writer

“I’ll always have a job,” Kaua`i Police Lt. Stan Koizumi

said.

Koizumi, the department’s traffic unit coordinator, was talking about

the many motorists who drive impaired or unlicensed into police DUI

checkpoints.

“Because of the way the state law is written, we are required

to put up proper signage, and they are big, construction-type signs” warning of

roadblocks, he said. “Yet (drivers) come right on though and bring attention to

themselves.”

Koizumi’s unit set up 62 roadblocks between Oct. 1, 1999 and

Sept. 30 this year at various locations throughout the island. The roadblocks

netted 10 drunk-driving arrests and eight bench warrant arrests on assorted

charges.

Officers also wrote 175 citations for driver license and/or lack

of insurance violations.

Koizumi said the majority of those arrested are

locals. But tourists do occasionally get popped.

“There was a tourist right

on Po`ipu Road near the Sheraton. If he had turned left,” toward the Sheraton

where he was staying, “he would have missed the roadblock. But he drove into

the roadblock, the officer detected an (alcohol) odor and he was arrested,”

Koizumi related.

And if you drive into the trap with booze or beer in your

body, Koizumi said, first offenders are generally looking at a 90-day

suspension of their driver license.

“Thirty days of that are absolute. For

the remaining 60, you might be granted a conditional license to drive to and

from work or to a facility that provides treatment for alcohol abuse,” Koizumi

said.

The issue, Koizumi said, is simple and straightforward: “If you drink

and drive on Kaua`i, sooner or later, you’ll get caught.”

Staff writer

Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and

dwilken@pulitzer.net