Where I live, there is more than just the checkpoint. On the approach there are officers, both marked and unmarked, in cars and out, looking for unusual behavior.
They have to be visible enough for you to have a chance to turn before you get there, but if they don’t like the looks of how you accomplish that, they are prepared to follow.
Not in California. By law, the stated purpose of the Checkpoints is to encourage safe driving under the law (or some wordsmithed variation on that), not to catch criminals.
Hence, since our local stops on NYE nabbed no unsafe drivers, the checkpoint can be argued to be 100% successful. And then argued to no longer be necessary.
As if.
That is contrary to the organizing principles of American society (and others too). Maybe you heard about Germany in WWII, and what happened when the general population took that attitude towards others?
Oh hell yeah. “Security theater”, that is all that is. Google it if it is a new term.
Oh but no. You think the millions of people who travel by plane, train and bus that are now subject to search would be blowing up their vehicles if the threat of search was not there?
Seriously?
You can avoid them perhaps, but not everyone can. Some can’t drive for whatever reason, license, ability, or health, and then can not travel other than by bus, train, or plane, all subject to search. This becomes a Federal issue if the travel is interstate.
In CA, that is how the law is defined - to promote safe driving, not to catch crooks.
YMMV in other states.
In my town in CA, the police officers have been shooting people dead at an alarming rate.
This happens all across the state. Oakland, Fresno, Inglewood, who knows where else has current cases. None of these are my town.
Demonstrably false in my town. I was threatened myself a month ago by an off duty cop who is a neighbor, having a bad day I guess and seeing me walk my dogs past his place as I do every day at that time, ran out of the house shouting I was lucky he didn’t shoot me and the dogs. Which he probably will one day just to be part of the club he is in. Already more than 10 percent have done just that in the last year and a half, and he is senior to most if not all of them. Has to lead by example, right?
Finally used my Goggle-fu to good advantage. Found a reference in a lawyerly report about drunk driving penalties in Washington State that makes reference to a 1988 Washington Supreme Court decision that invalidates the use DUI checkpoints. That is probably why you never hear of them here.
Really? No issues in Australia regarding loss of freedom of speech on the Internet lately?
Are you sure?
Maybe, but the basic organizing principles of your country is different than ours. Otherwise you would just be a star on our field of blue by now. Just kidding about that last one. 
That is not how it ends up working in practice here. Too often, the forced stops are pretext stops.
At least he had an article. Here, we don’t get even that, the PD meets the bare minimum noticing requirements by issuing a press release 2 hours before the checkpoint is set up.
No absent suspicion of a crime that he has good reason to believe will stand up in court.
If those rise to the standard I just mentioned, then go ahead and ask.
No, it is the same. Absent reasonable suspicion, move along, there is nothing to see here.
Well, tyeah,if the stop itself is not legal, then any evidence gathered during the stop would be tossed and inadmissible. What you have described is a pretext stop, and that should not fly.
Not that I’m aware of 
How does stopping me and everyone else unlucky enough to be passing a particular point at a particular time prevent DUI? If I don’t know when and where, then cognitively, it is as though it doesn’t exist, just like a speed trap. It is only a pipe dream that it is cognitively a deterrent to others that I had to pass through.
Of course you can do it. Just not legally. People drive without licenses, or insurance, or with vehicles not up to safety standards all the time. Heck, around here the other day we had an 11 year old drive through a stop sign, killing his entire immediate family. Of course you can drive without being licensed.
Because when people realise that they can (and will) get caught for DUI anytime, anywhere, they tend to pay a lot more attention to how much they’re drinking and will think a lot more seriously about not drinking, or staying overnight, or getting a taxi, or getting someone sober to drive.
There’s no “safe” way to drink-drive, but there’s a huge difference between driving at 70km/h in a school zone (40km/h) at 3:10pm on a Tuesday, and driving at 120km/h on a deserted highway road in the middle of the night, IMHO.
Actually, yes, or they get a new or revised warrant.
If they really want to catch drunk drivers, set checkpoints up around a football stadium.But not only would that plug up the roads but it would piss off the rich and powerful owners. But if they are serious, that would be a good place to start.
In my small California town, its the opposite. No one was caught at the New Years Eve dragnet, er, checkpoint, and since mid-November-ish, 2 men are dead who were going about there business on the street, one on foot, one on bike, because they ended up on the wrong end of a police bullet.
I beg to differ.
I’m pretty sure driving under the influence is not limited to alcohol. if you’re high on drugs and you get caught at the checkpoint, that’s not going to bring up the “stated purpose” versus “what we’re actually doing” distinction.
Oh hell yeah.
That is a whoosh, right? Many if not most of the non-dui arrests at these stops are drug related,for which there was no prior cause.