Police look for drunk driving deterrents
By Angus Henderson
Medicine Hat News
Feb 26, 2008, 01:21

Concerns about Medicine Hat’s rising rates of impaired driving have two local organizations wondering what kind of deterrents would work the best locally.

For Sylvia Takacs, president of the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), it means trying to get Alberta to adopt an Ontario Law that came into effect last Wednesday.

That law permits the province to seize and sell vehicles of people convicted of three drunk driving convictions in ten years.

Takacs’ national organization came out if favour of Ontario’s legislation last week.
“Vehicle forfeiture is basically something to look at to make it more of a deterrent,” she said Monday. “I’d be a lot happier if it (the Ontario legislation) was across Canada, but it’s a start and we can move from there.”

What she’s not sure about is what happens if an impaired driver is driving somebody else’s car.

Medicine Hat Police Chief Gord Earl has no doubts about stricter legislation being needed, but he’s not so sure Ontario’s model will readily work in Alberta.

“I don’t know if that’s the option for Alberta, but I’m certain we (Alberta) need to follow suit and find some kind of innovation to deter people from driving while they’re drunk,” he said.

Earl is well aware of Ontario’s frustrations about the numbers of impaired drivers in that province, but he’s also quite concerned about the increasing numbers in Medicine Hat, and from what he hears from his colleagues in other parts of Alberta.

The local problem was identified in a 2005 survey of residents, when many Hatters replied that impaired driving was more serious than what police statistics indicated.

City police had identified 190 impaired driving infractions in 2005 and in 2006 they recorded 200. Following receipt of the 2005 survey, Earl said the police took a different approach.

That approach led to a whopping increase to 303 impaired driving charges in 2007 — a more than 50 per cent increase.

In the first 55 days of this year, Earl said there have been 45 impaired driving charges — 28 in January alone.

“At that rate, at the end of the year, we’re going to be right up there with 2007 (statistics), unless we get another deterrent somehow,” he continued.

But it’s not just drinking and driving, he’s worried about, there’s also what to do about those drivers under the influence of various illegal drugs.

“There are instruments and legislation to combat alcohol, but we certainly need something to battle the drug impaired situation too that we encounter,” Earl added.

“There’s still some legislation there, but it’s not as cut and dry and not as measurable as alcohol is.”

British Columbia is also proposing its own solution to the impaired driving problem.
New legislation under development would allow B.C. to seize and sell impaired drivers’ vehicles even without an accident.

The new vehicle forfeiture legislation would rely on a civil court finding that a driver was impaired to the point that he was likely to cause injury or property damage.