444 STEVENS, J., dissenting surprise stop at a sobriety checkpoint. I believe this case is controlled by our several precedents condemning suspicionless random stops of motorists for investigatory purposes. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648 (1979); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 (1975); United States v. Ortiz, 422 U. S. 891 (1975); Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266 (1973); cf. Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 153-154 (1925). I There is a critical difference between a seizure that is preceded by fair notice and one that is effected by surprise. See Wyman v. James, 400 U. S. 309, 320-321 (1971); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 559 (1976); Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 513-514 (1978) (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). That is one reason why a border search, or indeed any search at a permanent and fixed checkpoint, is much less intrusive than a random stop. A motorist with advance notice of the location of a permanent checkpoint has an opportunity to avoid the search entirely, or at least to prepare for, and limit, the intrusion on her privacy. No such opportunity is available in the case of a random stop or a temporary checkpoint, which both depend for their effectiveness on the element of surprise. A driver who discovers an unexpected checkpoint on a familiar local road will be startled and distressed. She may infer, correctly, that the checkpoint is not simply "business as usual," and may likewise infer, again correctly, that the police have made a discretionary decision to focus their law enforcement efforts upon her and others who pass the chosen point. This element of surprise is the most obvious distinction between the sobriety checkpoints permitted by today's majority and the interior border checkpoints approved by this Court in Martinez-Fuerte. The distinction casts immediate doubt upon the majority's argument, for Martinez-Fuerte is the only case in which we have upheld suspicionless seizures STEVENS, J., dissenting 496 U. S. of motorists. But the difference between notice and surprise is only one of the important reasons for distinguishing between permanent and mobile checkpoints. With respect to the former, there is no room for discretion in either the timing or the location of the stop-it is a permanent part of the landscape. In the latter case, however, although the checkpoint is most frequently employed during the hours of darkness on weekends (because that is when drivers with alcohol in their blood are most apt to be found on the road), the police have extremely broad discretion in determining the exact timing and placement of the roadblock." There is also a significant difference between the kind of discretion that the officer exercises after the stop is made. A check for a driver's license, or for identification papers at an immigration checkpoint, is far more easily standardized than is a search for evidence of intoxication. A Michigan officer who questions a motorist at a sobriety checkpoint has virtually unlimited discretion to detain the driver on the basis 5 The Michigan plan provides that locations should be selected after consideration of "previous alcohol and drug experience per time of day and day of week as identified by arrests and/or Michigan Accident Location Index data," App. to Pet. for Cert. 148a, and that "specific site selection” should be based on the following criteria: "1. Safety of the location for citizens and law enforcement personnel. The site selected shall have a safe area for stopping a driver and must afford oncoming traffic sufficient sight distance for the driver to safely come to a stop upon approaching the checkpoint. "2. The location must ensure minimum inconvenience for the driver and facilitate the safe stopping of traffic in one direction during the pilot program. "3. Roadway choice must ensure that sufficient adjoining space is available to pull the vehicle off the traveled portion of the roadway for further inquiry if necessary. "4. Consideration should be given to the physical space requirements as shown in Appendixes 'A' and 'B.'" Id., at 149a-150a. Although these criteria are not as open-ended as those used in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648 (1979), they certainly would permit the police to target an extremely wide variety of specific locations. 444 STEVENS, J., dissenting of the slightest suspicion. A ruddy complexion, an unbuttoned shirt, bloodshot eyes, or a speech impediment may suffice to prolong the detention. Any driver who had just consumed a glass of beer, or even a sip of wine, would almost certainly have the burden of demonstrating to the officer that his or her driving ability was not impaired." Finally, it is significant that many of the stops at permanent checkpoints occur during daylight hours, whereas the sobriety checkpoints are almost invariably operated at night. A seizure followed by interrogation and even a cursory search at night is surely more offensive than a daytime stop that is almost as routine as going through a tollgate. Thus we thought it important to point out that the random stops at issue in Ortiz frequently occurred at night. 422 U. S., at 894. These fears are not, as the Court would have it, solely the lot of the guilty. See ante, at 452. To be law abiding is not necessarily to be spotless, and even the most virtuous can be unlucky. Unwanted attention from the local police need not be less discomforting simply because one's secrets are not the stuff of criminal prosecutions. Moreover, those who have found-by reason of prejudice or misfortune-that encounters with the police may become adversarial or unpleasant without good cause will have grounds for worrying at any stop designed to elicit signs of suspicious behavior. Being stopped by the police is distressing even when it should not be terrifying, and what begins mildly may by happenstance turn severe. For all these reasons, I do not believe that this case is analogous to Martinez-Fuerte. In my opinion, the sobriety checkpoints are instead similar to-and in some respects. more intrusive than-the random investigative stops that the Court held unconstitutional in Brignoni-Ponce and Prouse. In the latter case the Court explained: STEVENS, J., dissenting 496 U.S. "We cannot agree that stopping or detaining a vehicle on an ordinary city street is less intrusive than a rovingpatrol stop on a major highway and that it bears greater resemblance to a permissible stop and secondary detention at a checkpoint near the border. In this regard, we note that Brignoni-Ponce was not limited to rovingpatrol stops on limited-access roads, but applied to any roving-patrol stop by Border Patrol agents on any type of roadway on less than reasonable suspicion. See 422 U. S., at 882-883; United States v. Ortiz, 422 U. S. 891, 894 (1975). We cannot assume that the physical and psychological intrusion visited upon the occupants of a vehicle by a random stop to check documents is of any less moment than that occasioned by a stop by border agents on roving patrol. Both of these stops generally entail law enforcement officers signaling a moving automobile to pull over to the side of the roadway, by means of a possibly unsettling show of authority. Both interfere with freedom of movement, are inconvenient, and consume time. Both may create substantial anxiety." 440 U. S., at 657. We accordingly held that the State must produce evidence comparing the challenged seizure to other means of law enforcement, so as to show that the seizure “is a sufficiently productive mechanism to justify the 444 STEVENS, J., dissenting II The Court, unable to draw any persuasive analogy to Martinez-Fuerte, rests its decision today on application of a more general balancing test taken from Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47 (1979). In that case the appellant, a pedestrian, had been stopped for questioning in an area of El Paso, Texas, that had “a high incidence of drug traffic" because he "looked suspicious." Id., at 49. He was then arrested and convicted for refusing to identify himself to police officers. We set aside his conviction because the officers stopped him when they lacked any reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in criminal activity. In our opinion, we stated: "Consideration of the constitutionality of such seizures involves a weighing of the gravity of the public concerns served by the seizure, the degree to which the seizure advances the public interest, and the severity of the interference with individual liberty." Id., at 50-51. The gravity of the public concern with highway safety that is implicated by this case is, of course, undisputed." 'It is, however, inappropriate for the Court to exaggerate that concern by relying on an outdated statistic from a tertiary source. The Court's quotation from the 1987 edition of Professor LaFave's treatise, ante, at 451, is in turn drawn from a 1983 law review note which quotes a 1982 House Committee Report that does not give the source for its figures. See 4 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 10.8(d), p. 71 (2d ed. 1987), citing Note, Curbing the Drunk Driver under the Fourth Amendment: The Constitutionality of Roadblock Seizures, 71 Geo. L. J. 1457, 1457, n. 1 (1983), citing, H. R. Rep. No. 97-867, p. 7. JUSTICE BLACKMUN's citation, ante, at 455-456 (opinion concurring in judgment) to his own opinion in Perez v. Campbell, 402 U. S. 637, 657 (1971) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part) is even wider of the mark, since that case had nothing to do with drunken driving and the number of highway fatalities has since declined significantly despite the increase in highway usage. By looking instead at recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, one finds that in 1988 there were 18,501 traffic fatalities involving legally intoxicated persons and an additional 4,850 traffic fatalities involving persons with some alcohol exposure. Of course, the |