The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office held their first in a series of three weekly “safety roadblocks” at the Bristol Mills fire station late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, Aug. 21-22.
“Our goal here is to minimize impaired driving,” Sgt. Jason Nein said.
According to a notice from Sheriff Todd Brackett distributed to each car at the roadblock, “The deputies of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office at this roadblock are checking for violations of Maine law, to increase highway safety, including Maine’s Operating Under the Influence, seatbelt and child safety seat laws.”
Despite the inclusive tone of the notice, Nein clearly placed the focus on drunk driving. “We’ve had a fair number of [OUI arrests]” this year, Nein said.
“Unfortunately we get a high number of alcohol-related crashes,” Nein said. “Typically speed and alcohol go hand in hand… That’s what we’re trying to prevent here tonight.”
A Saturday night in August is prime time for drunk driving accidents. Many drivers fail to realize the potential for disaster in each crash, Nein said. Speaking of an accident in the area earlier this year, Nein said, “People have no idea how much devastation the human body can take in a crash like that.”
Nein specializes in accident reconstruction for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO). A veteran of the office since 1990, he’s seen enough accidents to speak with authority. Nein also wrote the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety grant that allows LCSO to operate the roadblocks.
The grant also pays for “targeted enforcement” patrols to pick off drunk drivers without the inconvenience of a roadblock.
The methods patrols – targeted or otherwise – use to enforce the OUI law is simple. “You know where your busy areas are,” Nein said, and the office regularly works traffic enforcement in those areas. All a patrol needs to pull over a possible offender is an “articulable suspicion.”
Articulable suspicion can take the form of a burned-out headlight or taillight, failure to stop at a stop sign, a speed violation, a missing front license plate, or any other vehicle defect or traffic violation.
Once an officer pulls a car over, identification of a drunk driver is similarly uncomplicated. Drunk drivers often exhibit bloodshot and/or glassy eyes, give off a strong, alcoholic smell, slur their speech or “fumble around” for items like proof of insurance or registration papers, Nein said.
If a driver exhibits any of these signs, officers often submit the driver to a series of field sobriety tests, or FST’s. Drivers might stand on one foot or walk a few yards heel-to-toe.
Officers also test for a symptom called nystagmus – a rapid, involuntary movement of the pupils, usually invisible to the unaffected eye, but visible and sustained in the eyes of a person under the influence of alcohol.
Unfortunately, drunk drivers often make LCSO’s job much easier. “Usually they find us,” Sgt. Daniel Sceviour, a 20-year veteran of the department, said.
Saturday’s roadblock began at 10:15 p.m. and, in the next two hours, didn’t turn up a single drunk driver. Nein and his team of six deputies gave a handful of verbal warnings for defects and at least one long-expired inspection sticker and discovered one passenger stretched out in the rear compartment of a minivan.
Deputies ask three or four drivers to step out of their cars for field sobriety tests, but no one was over the limit.
Shortly before midnight, guests and tired caterers from a wedding in Round Pond began to pass through, still without incident. Twenty minutes after midnight, Nein had tallied only 51 cars. The lack of OUI’s isn’t unusual, Nein said.
LCSO conducted two safety roadblocks last winter in Wiscasset and Boothbay Harbor without an arrest. “That was probably the coldest I’ve been in my life,” Nein said of one six-hour detail.
Bristol Mills might not seem like the ideal spot to catch drunk drivers, but it’s important to maintain a presence throughout the county, Nein said. “Lincoln County is a big place,” he said, with 458 square miles of roads.
Without a single arrest, the roadblock can still deter OUI offenders. “Word of mouth gets around that we’re out here,” Nein said. “People will hopefully be less apt to make poor decisions.”
Det. Sgt. Kenneth Hatch said one promising trend, popularized by beer commercials and relentless education campaigns, seems to be growing. “I’ve seen more designated drivers than ever,” Hatch said. “Everybody’s got DD’s now.”
LCSO deputies strive for quick, efficient processing of the drivers who follow the rules. “We don’t want to be too intrusive,” Nein said. In return, the office asks for the public’s patience and support.