[Porsche-O-Phile]

I worked a little late tonight (left around 8:30 or so) and headed across town to get home. I'm on an arterial surface street which normally moves along pretty well but tonight for some reason I notice it's going really slowly. As I creep along, I see there are orange cones. "Great", I'm thinking, "what happened to lure DPW out on a Friday night - pipe rupture or what?" As I get even a little further, I see that there are cops funneling the street down to one lane for a "sobriety checkpoint" (at least that's what the sign said). Some cars made to pull off to the side (have no idea what kind of silliness they got put through), I got waved through (I guess I looked "responsible" or something).

On the one hand, I'm glad they're out trying to nail drunk drivers and what-not, but on the other, it seemed to be kind of a weird place for it - there really aren't any bars or clubs in that area and it's mostly just commercial businesses - a Home Depot, a Best Buy, a Costco, a couple of gas stations, a few strip malls and so-forth. I'm not complaining about having to add 3 or 4 minutes to my 10-minute commute, but I sort of wonder if this is just a "show of force" thing or what. Is it even legal to stop people and demand breath tests without probable cause? I don't know for sure that's what the drivers of the cars that got singled out were being put through, but I wonder if there's even a legal issue with them stopping people to question them and determine whether there's then probable cause to continue or escalate the investigation up to and including a sobriety test and/or breath test. In other words, is it legal for them to even initiate an investigation like that in the first place?

Just curious for some of you legal guys. I'd tend to think that anyone bagged during such a checkpoint would have one hell of a case for improper search, but I'm not a laywer either.

What do you guys think about this?