Superintendent Steve Greally, national road policing manager said police were aware the pages existed and monitored them.
Superintendent Steve Greally, national road policing manager said police were aware the pages existed and monitored them.
Police have slammed the users of the growing number of Facebook pages which alert motorists to where checkpoints might be.
Superintendent Steve Greally, national road policing manager said police were aware the pages existed and monitored them.
"While we welcome the public being more aware of the risks arounddrink driving, checkpoint warnings on social media is not the way to minimise risk.
"The message from police is that there is a 100 per cent certain way of avoiding the negative consequences of a checkpoint: Don't drink and drive.
"If people boast of avoiding checkpoints so they can continue to drink and drive, the message is simple: Good mates don't allow other mates to drive drunk."
Road safety is discussed on a Facebook group used to avoid police checkpoints. Photo/ Facebook
"The purpose of police checkpoints are not designed to 'catch people out', but to take drivers off the road when they are not fit for driving. This could be due to being under the influence, licence status or the car's roadworthiness.
"While police will inevitably find a number of people driving under the influence when they do a checkpoint, an ideal checkpoint would be one where not a single person blows over the limit."
He said that two New Zealanders on average died every week in crashes involving alcohol, and another 40 were maimed or left with other life-changing injuries.
"Anyone who encourages someone who may be drunk or drugged behind the wheel to avoid police detection needs to think long and hard about how they would feel if that person then went on to kill or maim someone in their family or one of their friends."
Police checkpoints were based on risk and were operated in a range of locations.
Police have slammed pages like this one, which warn motorists where police checks have been set up.
"Their focus is on detection anywhere, anytime to remove drunk, drugged and dangerous drivers from our roads, before they go on to potentially maim or kill other innocent road users."
But a police spokeswoman said the sites were not illegal.
"It is extremely unlikely that charges would be laid over something like this as everyone has the right to freedom of expression.
"Police are not interested in taking such sites down, because publicity surrounding them is counterproductive, and other similar pages just crop up afterwards."
AA spokesman Mike Noon said while knowing more police were on the roads could help to stop someone from driving drunk, generally checkpoint pages shouldn't be necessary.
"Our advice in that situation is you shouldn't be at all concerned about checkpoints because you shouldn't be driving if you've been drinking."
He said the AA did not want drunk drivers to be sharing the roads with responsible members of the public.
"What we would like is for people not to be wary about checkpoints because they've taken the necessary precautions and organised a sober driver."
An administrator for the Facebook group Checkpoint Watch Auckland & NZ declined to comment on police criticism.
"Ummm no! Desperate journalism [sic]," they replied in response to the Herald's questions.
