California DUI checkpoints and the duty to stop

The duty in Vehicle Code § 2814.2(a) is conditional on signage. It applies where signs and displays are posted requiring the stop, and it is framed as a stop and submit to an inspection conducted by a law enforcement agency. California’s constitutional framework for these operations comes from the California Supreme Court decision in Ingersoll v. Palmer (1987), which treated a properly run sobriety checkpoint as an administrative screening rather than a criminal investigation and set out the operational conditions under which one may be run. Section 2814.2 was enacted twenty four years later and does not restate those conditions; it addresses the aftermath of the stop instead.

What triggered AB 353 was the number of cars taken from unlicensed drivers at California checkpoints. Vehicle Code § 2814.2(b) now provides that notwithstanding Vehicle Code § 14602.6 or § 14607.6, a peace officer or any other authorized person shall not cause the impoundment of a vehicle at a sobriety checkpoint if the driver’s only offense is a violation of § 12500. That matters because § 14602.6(a)(1) otherwise allows a peace officer who determines a person was driving without ever having been issued a driver’s license, or while suspended or revoked, to cause the removal and seizure of the vehicle, and states that a vehicle so impounded shall be impounded for 30 days. Section 2814.2(b) removes that outcome at a sobriety checkpoint where unlicensed driving is the only offense.

Section 2814.2(c) then sets out what the officer must do instead. On encountering a driver in violation of § 12500, the officer shall make a reasonable attempt to identify the registered owner of the vehicle. If the registered owner is present, or the officer can identify the owner and obtain the owner’s authorization to release the vehicle to a licensed driver by the end of the checkpoint, the vehicle shall be released either to the registered owner if that person is a licensed driver or to the licensed driver the owner authorizes. Where a notice to appear is issued, the name and driver’s license number of the licensed driver who took the vehicle must be listed on the officer’s copy of the notice to appear given to the unlicensed driver. Only when the vehicle cannot be released is it removed, and then under Vehicle Code § 22651(p), the notice to appear removal ground, rather than the 30 day route.

Vehicle Code § 12500(a) is the underlying offense the release rules are built around: a person may not drive a motor vehicle upon a highway unless the person holds a valid driver’s license issued under the code, except where expressly exempted. Section 12500(c) extends the same rule to driving in an offstreet parking facility held open to the public, and § 12500(d) forbids driving a vehicle or combination of vehicles of a type the person is not licensed for.

California runs two other kinds of posted checkpoint, and they are not interchangeable with a sobriety checkpoint. Vehicle Code § 2814 requires every driver of a passenger vehicle to stop and submit to an inspection of the vehicle’s mechanical condition and equipment wherever the California Highway Patrol is conducting such tests and signs are displayed, with unsafe or noncompliant vehicles routed into the correction procedure in Vehicle Code § 40150 and following. Vehicle Code § 2814.1 lets a county board of supervisors establish by ordinance, on highways under its jurisdiction, a vehicle inspection checkpoint program to check for violations of §§ 27153 and 27153.5, run by the local agency with primary responsibility for traffic law enforcement, and § 2814.1(c) allows the county to fund it from fine proceeds deposited under Penal Code § 1463.15. Vehicle Code § 2814.1(d) then forbids state and local law enforcement agencies from conducting motorcycle only checkpoints anywhere in California, a prohibition added by AB 1047 (Stats. 2012, Ch. 89) effective January 1, 2013.

One further duty now attaches to the conversation at the window. Vehicle Code § 2806.5(a), operative January 1, 2024, requires a peace officer making a traffic stop to state the reason for the stop before engaging in questioning related to a criminal investigation or a traffic violation, and to document that reason on any citation or police report. Separately, a driver stopped anywhere in California must present a license for examination on the demand of a peace officer enforcing the Vehicle Code under § 12951(b), and must have that license in immediate possession while driving on a highway under § 12951(a).

2(a). 1, which makes it unlawful and an infraction to violate any provision of the code except as otherwise provided in that article. Vehicle Code § 42001(a) sets the penalty for an infraction at a fine not exceeding $100, rising to $200 for a second infraction within one year of a prior conviction and $250 for a third or subsequent within one year of two or more. 2(c) requires release to the registered owner or an owner authorized licensed driver by the end of the checkpoint, with removal under § 22651(p) only if release is impossible.

6(a)(2) requires the impounding agency to notify the legal owner by certified mail with return receipt within two working days, with failure to do so barring the agency from charging for more than 15 days of impoundment when the legal owner redeems the vehicle. The agency must also maintain a published 24 hour telephone number giving impound information and the registered owner’s hearing rights.