Impaired Driving

I spoke to a woman this week who was upset at the way the police had handled the clearing of an out of control party at a residence. Impaired driving was the inevitable consequence of requiring the teens to leave immediately.

The Criminal Code now allows a peace officer to demand breath samples from a driver without having a reasonable suspicion that the driver has alcohol in his body. This case determines that mandatory alcohol screening is not a violation of the driver's Charter rights.

Party Hearty but beware the morning after! Early in my policing career it was not uncommon to find a drunk driver with a blood alcohol level between .30 and .36. These people were truly drunk and not just impaired as most of us would start to be at the .05 level. Time to head for home and sleep it off because some of us have to be at work in the morning.

The Canadian Center for Drug Abuse and Addiction has released a report titled Measuring the Impact of Drug Impaired Driving. The report suggests that not enough is known about driving while impaired by drugs other than alcohol and its effects on people living in Canada.

The background to this document states that: "As the prevalence of alcohol-impaired driving decreases, and as more jurisdictions decriminalize or legalize cannabis, it is increasingly important for policy makers to have accurate information on the prevalence and pattern of drug driving."

Webinar hosted by the BC Injury Prevention Unit and conducted by Dr. Jeff Brubacher, Associate Professor, Dept. of Emergency Medicine, University of British Columbia. Unfortunately, the video sound is poor.

The case of R v Francisco involves a collision on June 7, 2019 in Burnaby that resulted in the death of a pedestrian, Louise Landreth. Roberto Francisco was driving a BMW sedan erratically over a period of about one hour and twenty minutes until a collision at high speed resulted in a loss of control and Ms. Landreth being struck and killed.

A recent article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal examined impaired driving and the legalization of recreational cannabis. It concluded that there is potential for a small but important increase in fatal motor vehicle collisions due to recreational marihuana use.

Whoosh! Here comes a car overtaking my police vehicle at 144 km/h in the posted 110 km/h zone. It's dark at 11:30 pm and at that speed, any animal or object on the road won't be identified in time and a collision is almost sure to occur.

It's not yet zero tolerance for all drivers, but the B.C. government has enacted the Immediate Roadside Prohibition (IRP) program, reducing the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) threshold for sanctions from 80 mg% to 50 mg%.