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For more than four hours last weekend, two dozen deputies and officers set up a sobriety checkpoint and stopped every car going south on U.S. 41 in North Port.

Out of 633 cars stopped, police made only one DUI-related arrest.

The lack of arrests gives fuel to a long-standing criticism of DUI checkpoints that are usually set up during holidays.

“They’re just not a particularly effective way to spend law enforcement dollars,” said Sarasota defense attorney Tom Hudson, who has studied the results of the checkpoints in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Hudson found that only about 2 percent of drivers stopped at the checkpoints are arrested on drunken driving charges. A national study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found similar results.

If those officers patrolled for four hours, they would almost certainly find more than one drunken driver, Hudson and other defense attorneys said.

The American Beverage Institute agrees, saying roving police patrols are three to 10 times more effective at catching dangerous drivers, and also focused on other dangerous activities like speeding or texting while driving.

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A four-year legal battle over a DUI defendant’s right to examine the computer code inside the breathalyzer machines used in Florida resulted in a series of rulings in January that could prevent prosecutors in Manatee and Sarasota counties from using alcohol breath tests as evidence.

Whether the rulings will stand remains a question. Prosecutors are expected to appeal once the written orders are filed. Until the legal battle over the computer code is over, the Intoxilyzer will still be used by law enforcement officers across Florida.

If the rulings stand, prosecutors will depend on the testimony of the arresting officers. Observations of slurred speech, the smell of alcohol on the driver’s breath and field sobriety tests already contribute to securing DUI convictions, but the inability to use the breathalyzer test results could mean that charges may be dismissed or reduced more easily than before.

The real goal according to Venice defense attorney Robert Harrison is not to rule out the use of breathalyzer machines. It is to protect the community from machines that do not work properly. The manufacturer of the Intoxilyzer machines used in Florida refuses to release their code. Judge Doug Henderson of Manatee County justifies his ruling to throw out breath test results. He says that this is the only crime where a machine determines guilt or innocence. Until the computer code can be validated accurate, he isn’t ready to convict defendants on that machine’s evidence.