We all know about the ramifications associated with drunk driving.
Anyone under the age of 40 who went to school in Canada attended at least one session in which somebody – a police officer, a paramedic or a motivational speaker – warned about the dangers of driving while impaired. We heard that drunk driving is against the law, and puts lives at risk.
Police have held check stops and impaired driving blitzes for many years, often prior to Christmas when the impaired driving rates are likely to increase due to Christmas parties and other social outings.
Yet police, both locally and provincially, will tell you that many Saskatchewan residents aren’t getting the message. Saskatchewan’s impaired driving rates are the highest in the country. There have been a number of high-profile impaired driving incidents in the province in recent years.
In some cases, those incidents involved prominent people. In other cases, they gained attention because they resulted in fatalities.
On the local front, the EPS has dedicated a lot of time and resources in the past 16 months to the fight against drinking and driving. Their efforts have largely been supported by the public, who want to see a safer community. People have generally been very understanding when they have been delayed by the check stops. Most will describe them as a necessary inconvenience.
Also, most people seem to be supportive of the new tougher laws against impaired driving, although a few people have complained, claiming, for whatever reason, that it will have a detrimental effect on restaurants.
Despite the crackdowns, the tougher legislation and the public support, the EPS continues to arrest multiple people for impaired driving each week. Police chief Paul Ladouceur regularly cites the example of one motorist who has been charged for impaired driving four times.
And so the local police want to up the ante in the fight versus impaired driving by permanently seizing vehicles from repeat offenders. Ladouceur says this has been attempted in other jurisdictions in the country, and it has withstood challenges in the courts.
Estevan would be the first Saskatchewan community that he knows of to try this approach.
It’s hard to tell if it will actually deter people from drinking and driving. Many might think twice if they already have one impaired driving conviction, and decide to get behind the wheel when they know they are impaired. After all, nobody wants to lose their vehicle.
At the very least, it will create a very stiff punishment, which most people will welcome.
This punishment would not be applied to someone whose blood alcohol level is between .04 and .08, or a first-time offender who was barely over the legal limit, although there does have to be some sort of punishment for these crimes.
This is for those who repeatedly insist on putting the health of others in jeopardy by driving while at an unsafe level of impairment.
The EPS seems to have the support of others in the law enforcement community, who see this as a potentially reasonable approach to take impaired drivers off the road. It seems like the local police service isn’t the only one who views this as reasonable.
We can only wonder why some people would have a problem with it.
Nobody complains when the police seize the vehicles and other property of those who are involved with the drug trade. So why not seize the vehicles of those who repeatedly insist on turning their vehicles into a weapon?
The safety of people in the community trumps the belief that some people have that they can drive, regardless of their condition.
