Kentucky Never Wrote a Sobriety Checkpoint Statute, but It Banned One Kind of Roadblock

KRS 189.126 is two lines long and it is the whole of Kentucky's statutory law of roadblocks. It was created by 2006 Ky. Acts ch. 180, sec. 12, effective July 12, 2006, the same act that made adult seat belt use enforceable in its own right under KRS 189.125(6). The trade was explicit: Kentucky agreed to enforce the belt law directly and simultaneously took belt-only roadblocks off the table. The operative words are "sole purpose." A roadblock run to check licences, registration and impaired driving that happens to reveal an unbelted driver is not a roadblock erected for the sole purpose of checking KRS 189.125, so the prohibition does not reach it. The belt violation it produces is worth very little in any event: KRS 189.990(26) caps the fine at twenty five dollars, makes it prepayable, and exempts it from court costs under KRS 24A.175, additional court costs under KRS 24A.176 and the fee under KRS 24A.1765, while KRS 189.125(7) bars the court from transmitting the conviction to the Transportation Cabinet and bars the Cabinet from putting it on any driving history record.

The absence of a checkpoint statute is provable rather than assumed. Read end to end, all 211 sections of KRS Chapter 189, Traffic Regulations and Vehicle Equipment and Storage, use the word roadblock exactly twice, both times inside KRS 189.126, and never use the word checkpoint at all. All 45 sections of KRS Chapter 189A, Driving Under the Influence, use neither word. There is therefore no Kentucky statute setting a supervisory approval requirement, an advance publicity duty, a signage or lighting standard, a neutral formula for which vehicles are stopped, or a maximum detention time at a roadblock. Those questions are litigated in Kentucky District Court on constitutional grounds, one roadblock at a time.

The roadside breath device is where Kentucky law becomes unusually favourable, and it changed recently. KRS 189A.100(1)(a) lets an agency administer a preliminary breath test in the field, before arrest, to a person suspected of violating KRS 189A.010, in addition to any other blood alcohol test authorised by law. As amended by 2026 Ky. Acts ch. 193, sec. 2, effective July 15, 2026, subsection (1)(b) provides that a refusal of that preliminary test shall not be used against the person in a court of law or in any administrative proceeding and shall not result in suspension of the licence by the court at arraignment, and that the person must be told so before the device is offered. Refusing the handheld unit at a Kentucky roadblock therefore carries no statutory penalty, which is not true of the evidential test that follows an arrest.

The evidential test is governed by KRS 189A.103. Subsection (1) deems every person who operates or is in physical control of a vehicle in the Commonwealth to have consented to one or more tests of blood, breath and urine where an officer has reasonable grounds to believe KRS 189A.010(1) or KRS 189.520(1) has been violated. To be valid, a breath test must be administered by a peace officer holding a breath analysis operator certificate issued by the secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, and only after that officer has had the person under personal observation at the location of the test for a minimum of twenty minutes. Kentucky then splits refusals in a way few states do. Under KRS 189A.105(2)(a), a driver must be told that refusing a breath test may be used against them in court as evidence of violating KRS 189A.010 and will suspend the licence at arraignment, while refusing a blood test shall not be used against them in court but will still suspend the licence at arraignment. If that advisory is not given before the request, KRS 189A.105(2)(d) prevents the refusal being used in court or as an aggravating circumstance under KRS 189A.010(11) and prevents the arraignment suspension. KRS 189A.105(3) gives the person at least ten and not more than fifteen minutes to try to contact an attorney, and requires that the person be told of that right; failing to reach counsel does not excuse refusal, and there is no right to have an attorney present, although one may attend if able to arrive inside that window.

Recording at the stop is regulated as well. KRS 189A.100(2)(a) permits an agency to record the pursuit, the traffic stop, and field sobriety tests or a refusal under KRS 189A.103, and subsection (2)(b) then conditions the recording: the test must be recorded in its entirety, the entire recording of the field tests and of the pursuit and stop must be shown in court unless the defendant waives it, the defence may show it whether or not the Commonwealth introduced it, the defendant must get a chance to view it a reasonable time before trial, and the recording is otherwise a confidential record usable only in court, in trial preparation and in official administrative review. The sentencing court orders destruction after fourteen months where no accident was recorded and no appeal is pending, or twenty six months where the film records an actual accident, or later if appeals or civil proceedings continue. Under KRS 189A.100(3) the officer must note on the uniform citation that a videotape was made, and a public official who shows a recording outside those uses is guilty of official misconduct in the first degree under KRS 522.020.

A Kentucky roadblock ends in a citation or an arrest under the ordinary DUI machinery rather than under any checkpoint statute. 220. , and a Transportation Cabinet suspension on top of the court suspension. : the driver must be told that although the licence will be suspended, an ignition interlock licence may be available immediately, with credit toward any later interlock requirement arising from the same arrest. Refusal does not end the testing. 105(2)(b) expressly preserves a judge's power to issue a search warrant or other order for a blood draw, and where the incident involves a fatal motor vehicle accident the investigating officer must seek such a warrant unless testing has already been done by consent; a defendant convicted after warrant testing must make restitution to the Commonwealth for the cost of the test. 105(2)(c)2. 990(26) and stays off the driving record entirely.