Does Needham have an alcohol problem? (Wellesley, Dover: school, vs, stats)

[msRB311]

5 people arrested in 10 days for OUIs:

https://news.yahoo.com/needham-polic...163717214.html

[wolfgang239]

Maybe their police are better equipped to catch people, maybe there are lots of impaired drivers from all over passing through there, maybe Needham has an alcohol problem. No way of knowing any answers from an article so light on the details.

[bostongymjunkie]

Anyone who gets arrested for OUI is more likely than not to have an alcohol problem. That doesn't necessarily mean it's more likely a Needham problem.

[msRB311]

Just seemed striking to have 5 OUIs in one fairly small affluent town in MA. I guess yahoo news thought so too

One thing I thought of was it's the end of the school year, maybe some of those were seniors or something. Who knows.

[westminster88]

The article says nothing about where the drivers were from.

[bostongymjunkie]

It's quite a lot for 10 days but who knows if they were arrested on state highways or local roads, state police vs local police, whether they had a special operation anywhere that week targeting specific motor vehicle violations which might have led to the OUI. State OUI stats for Needham in 2020 show total of 13 cases. In contrast Wellesley had 24. Wealthy people drink and drive too although that doesn't mean those arrested were from either of those towns. They both have major roads running through them. I'm actually surprised they don't show more given the relatively sleepy nature which often means cops have time to do more traffic stops.

[msRB311]

That's also true that the people arrested for OUIs weren't necessarily from Needham.

[id77]

Originally Posted by msRB311

Just seemed striking to have 5 OUIs in one fairly small affluent town in MA. I guess yahoo news thought so too

One thing I thought of was it's the end of the school year, maybe some of those were seniors or something. Who knows.

To be fair, Needham is a town that is frequently passed through by car. A decent stretch of 128 runs through Needham and non-highway traffic going to towns like Dover and Wellesley pretty much have to cut through it.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by wolfgang239

Maybe their police are better equipped to catch people, maybe there are lots of impaired drivers from all over passing through there, maybe Needham has an alcohol problem. No way of knowing any answers from an article so light on the details.

Yep. I've always wondered what percentage of drunk drivers in any given area on any given night are actually caught. I would wager that in most places, it's extremely low (I'd guess fewer than 5%). Seems reasonable to think that if a local PD decides to target drunk driving over the span of a few weeks, they'd probably see an uptick in arrests. The State Police occasionally do sobriety checkpoints all over the state and these net a relatively significant number of arrests each time (hard to fine anything more recent, but here's a checkpoint that yielded 12 in a single evening). It's to draw conclusions from Needham's reports (beyond the fact that people do drive drunk in/through Needham too) without a lot more info.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by id77

To be fair, Needham is a town that is frequently passed through by car. A decent stretch of 128 runs through Needham and non-highway traffic going to towns like Dover and Wellesley pretty much have to cut through it.

These were all arrests by the Needham Police, so it's not likely they were on 128. Most of those photos look like residential areas, so chances are they were locals.