In-vehicle videotaping of drinking driver traffic stops in Oregon

The purpose of this evaluation is to examine effectiveness of the use of video cassette recorders during traffic stops for drunk driving. This is accomplished by comparing traffic stops that employed video cassette recorders with traffic stops that did not, based on 1341 arrests taken from logs kept by state, city and county enforcement agencies from January 1994 through October 1995. Of the 1341 arrests, 330 used videotaping. Three measures were examined, successful prosecution rate, time until disposition and implied consent hearing requests. If the arrest is videotaped a higher proportion resulted in diversion and about the same proportion resulted in convictions. Fewer were still pending or resolved in the defendant's favor. Also, videotaping appears to shorten the time until case disposition. Finally, the probability that an implied consent hearing will be requested and/or held is clearly higher if the arrest is videotaped. Based on these findings, it was concluded that in-vehicle videotaping of drunk driving arrests is effective to the extent that it leads to more arrests being resolved in the state's favor. However, the evidence that in-vehicle videotaping expedites the case disposition process is somewhat equivocal. Arrests that are videotaped lead to somewhat more speedy case resolutions overall, but also to higher implied consent hearing request rates and presumably more officer time invested in implied consent hearings. In other words, results suggest that videotapes may delay or complicate the process in some instances, but they more often lead to earlier case resolution.