By Paul Leighton
BEVERLY — Drivers coming over the bridge from Salem early Saturday morning were greeted as usual by the "Welcome to Beverly" sign.
Not so usual was the welcoming committee awaiting them — 15 state troopers, five Beverly police officers, and the possibility of an unwanted side trip to jail.
From midnight to 2:30 a.m., the troopers and officers stopped about 200 vehicles as part a sobriety checkpoint. Police spoke with every driver, administered field sobriety tests to 14 of them, and ultimately arrested four on charges of driving under the influence of alcohol.
"It educates the public that state and local authorities take drunk driving seriously," said Sgt. Joe Shairs, the Beverly Police Department's traffic officer. "The tolerance level has got to be zero in that regard."
The checkpoint was one of the approximately 85 such operations that have been run every year since Massachusetts State Police began the program in 2005.
The checkpoints are much more elaborate than an officer with a flashlight flagging down cars. State police arrive with a motor-home-sized vehicle known as the BAT mobile, for "breath alcohol testing."
The vehicle, one of two employed by state police, includes two Breathalyzers that are linked by satellite to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, enabling police to immediately suspend the driver's license of anyone who fails a Breathalyzer test.
The vehicle also has four holding cells where those arrested can be detained until they are transported by cruiser or van to the nearest state police barracks.
At Saturday's checkpoint, the BAT mobile was parked in the parking lot of the former McDonald's restaurant on the waterfront at the foot of the Beverly-Salem bridge. Police set up traffic cones to funnel vehicles into a single lane as they came over the bridge.
On a frigid night with the wind whipping off the nearby water, two officers at a time waited at the end of the lane next to a stop sign and under a set of elevated spotlights.
Every vehicle that came through was required to stop. The officers spoke briefly and politely with each driver, shining their flashlights into the car and looking for signs of possible intoxication — bloodshot eyes, open containers, slurred speech, an odor of alcohol.
If police had reason to believe the driver might be intoxicated, the driver was instructed to turn into the McDonald's parking lot. There, the officer conducted a field sobriety test. Based on the officer's observations, the driver was either released or arrested and taken into the BAT mobile for booking.
Police chose this particular location in part because there are no easy escape routes. At a similar checkpoint last year, one car tried to escape by doing a U-turn on the bridge, Shairs said. On Saturday, a vehicle coming in the other direction did an about-face in the wrong lane on Cabot Street. The driver was quickly pulled over by Beverly police.
The sobriety checkpoints have come under scrutiny since the death of a man who was a passenger in a vehicle stopped at a checkpoint in North Andover on Thanksgiving Eve. The man had struggled with police.
Some of the drivers observed on Saturday were reluctant to roll down their windows, forcing police to tap on the window with their flashlight. Other drivers were scrambling to fasten their seat belts. But there were no conflicts.
Shairs, the Beverly traffic officer, said the checkpoints lead to fewer accidents because people know that police are enforcing drunken-driving laws. This was the fourth checkpoint held at the same location in Beverly in the last nine months, and each time the number of arrests has dropped, he said.
"The educational piece is kicking in," he said.
Staff writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2675 or by e-mail at pleighton@salemnews.com.
Sobriety checkpoint
Vehicles stopped: 200 (estimated)
Field sobriety tests administered: 14
Drivers arrested: 4
