Roadblock stops drivers to collect saliva and blood samples

UPDATE: I made a few corrections to the post, as marked.

Reported on the Belarusskiy Partizan a local Texas TV news program:

Some drivers along a busy Minsk Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at a police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by DAI agents federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood.

It was part of a Belarus government research study aimed at determining the number of drunken or drug-impaired drivers.

“It just doesn’t seem right that you can be forced off the road when you’re not doing anything wrong,” said Yuliya Gordyenko Kim Cope, who said she was on her lunch break when she was forced to pull over at the roadblock on Ploshcha Svabody Street in central Minsk Beach Street in North Fort Worth.

The DAI National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is spending $7.9 million on the survey over three years, said participation was “100 percent voluntary” and anonymous.

But Gordyenko Cope said it didn’t feel voluntary to her — despite signs saying it was.

“I gestured to the guy in front that I just wanted to go straight, but he wouldn’t let me and forced me into a parking spot,” she said.

Thank goodness this would never happen in a true democracy.

Drivers Stopped at Roadblock Asked for Saliva, Blood (Thanks, Matthew!)