When safety poses a hazard.

I have what I would characterize as a healthy fear of police. Ordinarily, I go out of my way to be overly cordial to officers because of this fear. But something happened to me last night that struck me as a basic affront to common sense and public safety, done by some of North Jersey's very own boys in blue.

In a valid effort to curb drunken driving, Butler Borough's police department had a DWI checkpoint set up on my route home last night. I applaud their effort. Drunken driving is a public hazard that I find morally reprehensible. I take issue, however, with their judgment.

Crossing into Wayne, Route 23 becomes the main artery for traffic moving north and south through Northern New Jersey. It is a two-lane road in its southernmost stretches, expands to four in Wayne and contracts back to two over the West Milford border. In their infinite wisdom, the Butler Police Department set up a check point on Route 23, choking the thoroughfare down to one lane on a Friday night.

While the quantity of traffic on the highway was diminished at this hour on a Friday, there were still enough drivers on the road to cause a problem.

I arrived at the checkpoint around 12 a.m., which was set up across from the Jeep dealership on the northbound side of the highway, on the crest of a hill. Leading up to the checkpoint is a sharp decline in front of the Ford Nissan dealership before a small bend, then an incline toward the Jeep dealership. The choke point caused a dangerous backup of cars. Coupled with the rain, I wouldn't be surprised if there were motor vehicle accidents at the scene.

I'm all for keeping drunken drivers off the road. It is in the interest of public safety to do so. But the benefit was negated by the risk posed by the checkpoint. It would be in the interest of the public to move these checkpoints off of the highway and onto side roads where they belong.

And besides, Carthago delenda est.