Looks like the hall monitors may get a shot at the big leagues after all. Allan Polunsky of the Office of Public Safety has asked the attorney general whether Polunsky's department can set up sobriety checkpoints in Texas. According to Texas Politics Blog, Polunsky wrote:

"Driver license checkpoints could potentially serve significant public interests in traffic safety and your opinion in this matter will help the Commission in the formulation of appropriate law enforcement policy."

Presumably, this is a creative work-around since after checkpoint legislation failed to pass last year.

Checkpoints have been a thorn in the legislature's side ever since the 1994 Court of Appeals decision to ban them because without uniform guidelines they were unconstitutional. Since then, checkpoint advocates have been making the case that Texas, as the largest state without checkpoints, needs them.

Texas had the highest per-capita rate of alcohol-related drunk driving deaths in 2006, according to Mark Cross, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. The department is still crunching the 2007 numbers.

In a 2007 article in the Dallas Morning News a regional administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Fort Worth branch) made the case for checkpoint legislation:

"The intention is not to go out and arrest a whole lot more people. It is to get people to make a choice, to decide ahead of time whether to reduce the amount that they are going to consume, or to designate a driver."

This choice has, to my knowledge, been made since chariots were the rage and mead the drink of choice. Drunk driving is an irresponsible decision that has ruined many lives. But without concrete and constitutional legislation, checkpoints hardly seem the best highway safeguard. Especially since they give officers the opportunity to write all sorts of citations--like for driving without insurance or suspended or expired licenses-- even if a driver is completely sober.

Hat tip to Texas Politics Blog for bringing this to our attention.

(Photo: Galveston Island law enforcement officials. Photo by FEMA/Jocelyn Augustino.)