Costs and benefits of a community sobriety checkpoint program.
OBJECTIVE
Alcohol-involved crashes cost society more than $100 billion a year. Sobriety checkpoints are effective in apprehending drunk drivers. This article compares the costs and the estimated monetary benefits from a hypothetical community sobriety checkpoint program.


METHODS
The analysis is constructed around a hypothetical community with 100,000 licensed drivers. A literature review suggests that a generously funded intensive checkpoint program (156 checkpoints per year) can be expected to reduce alcohol-attributable crashes by about 15%. The benefits (cost savings) of the checkpoint program are calculated using 1993 alcohol-involved crash incidence from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Costs per alcohol-involved crash and the percentage of alcohol-involved crashes attributable to alcohol are updated from published studies.


RESULTS
Estimated annual savings to the hypothetical community total $7.9 million. This includes $3.1 million for averted fatalities, $4.5 million for averted non-fatal injuries, and $0.3 million for averted property damage. Every $1 spent on a sobriety checkpoint program can be expected to save the community more than $6, including $1.30 of insurer costs.


CONCLUSIONS
An intensive sobriety checkpoint program can save a community more in automobile crash costs than the program costs.
Miller
T R
TR
Children's Safety Network Economics and Insurance Resource Center, National Public Services Research Institute, Landover, Maryland 20785, USA.
Galbraith
M S
MS
Lawrence
B A
BA
D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control*; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007346:Insurance, Accident / Q000191:economics; D012926:Social Control, Formal; D013695:Temperance / Q000191:economics*; D014481:United States