Police are planning a DUI checkpoint along Route 611 in tonight. Protesters are planning to “nullify” it.
A photo at the June 15 DUI checkpoint protest by the Valley Forge Revolutionaries. Credit Photo courtesy of Valley Forge Revolutionaries
The Valley Forge Revolutionaries will protest the scheduled July 6 police sobriety checkpoints near Abington Memorial Hospital.
Motorists heading along Route 611 tonight may encounter two things:
Protestors holding up signs to go the other way.These protestors are part of a grass-roots organization, calling themselves the Valley Forge Revolutionaries.
“What we do is activism,” Darren Wolfe, spokesperson for the Valley Forge Revolutionaries, said. “No one has the right to initiate force on anyone else, and we believe on consistently applying that.”
The group, founded in 2007, describes its police checkpoint protests as “checkpoint nullification” events. (read more)
While police, MADD and many people will argue that DUI checkpoints are necessary to curb drunk driving, the reality is that these checkpoints have very little to do with DUI enforcement. Police have other less costly, more effective techniques like roving patrols. DUI checkpoints are setup to appease DUI lobbies, collect federal grants and create added revenue by issuing non-DUI tickets (mostly non-moving violations).
Hopefully these types of protests will prompt us all to take a closer look at the role of DUI checkpoints and examine the unnecessary intrusion they cause in our lives.
I say cheers to them. Protest against your government when they interfere unreasonably and without cause to your individual freedom.
