In the News

DUI is serious problem
By Robert Solomon, Suzie Chiodo and Andrew Murie,
Special to The Windsor Star
July 6, 2009

Re: Frivolous criminalization won't protect the public, Emile Therien, June 24.

While former Canada Safety Council president Emile Therien may believe that introducing a new streamlined .05 per cent criminal impaired driving offence is "frivolous," we would disagree. So too would the more than 85 per cent of the world's developed democracies that have made driving with a blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) of .05 per cent or above an offence.

Similarly, almost all leading medical, accident prevention and traffic safety organizations worldwide publicly advocate legal BAC limits of .05 per cent or lower. Indeed, as early as 1960, the British Medical Association concluded that a .05 per cent BAC is the highest level "that can be accepted as entirely consistent with the safety of other road users."

Mr. Therien, like the alcohol industry and its allies, may find the current federal laws acceptable. However, the fact is that impaired driving remains, by far, the No. 1 criminal cause of death in Canada. In 2006, impairment-related crashes claimed 1,278 lives -- more than twice as many as all types of homicide combined. Unfortunately, the number and percentage of impaired driving deaths have been rising, and in 2006 exceeded the 1999 levels.

Canada has one of the world's worst records of impairment-related traffic deaths among comparable developed democracies. For example, a 2001 Transport Canada study found that Canada had the highest rate of impairment among fatally injured drivers of eight OECD nations, although most of those countries have far higher rates of per capita alcohol consumption.

More recently, two Transport Canada studies acknowledged that Canada has made virtually no progress in reducing impaired driving deaths in recent years. One study specifically noted that impaired driving was one of the traffic safety areas in which Canada's "performance (was) most disappointing." Contrary to Mr. Therien's assertion, it emphasized that the existing provincial administrative licence suspensions were "a wholly inadequate response to the risks associated with BACs (greater than or equal to) .05 per cent."

Given Canada's poor impaired driving record, the creation of a new .05 per cent criminal offence is long overdue. Laboratory, driving simulator and closed access roadway studies over the last five decades have established that even small amounts of alcohol adversely affect driving skills and performance. Not surprisingly, the international trend has been to lower permissible BAC levels. Virtually every jurisdiction that has done so has experienced significant and sustained reductions in impaired driving deaths and injuries.

Mr. Therien's contention that a .05 per cent offence would place an intolerable burden on the courts is not supported by the international experience. The American states that lowered their criminal BAC limits from .10 to .08 per cent have not reported being over-burdened. Nor is there evidence of such problems in Europe or Australia, which have had .05 BAC limits for over 20 years. Even if the concern with access to the courts had merit, why are some people more concerned with court backlogs than with legislation that would significantly reduce impaired driving deaths and injuries? Would these same people argue that court management issues should trump the interests of assault and sexual assault victims?

Finally, Mr. Therien would have us do nothing, simply because the current BAC limit has been in place for over 35 years. In our view, it is this argument that is frivolous, not the proposed .05 per cent BAC offence.

The research literature and international experience indicate that such an offence would significantly reduce alcohol-related traffic deaths and injuries in Canada. Mr. Therien has ignored the evidence and adopted the arguments of the alcohol industry. Instead, we should follow the evidence and put traffic safety first.

Robert Solomon is professor, Faculty of Law, UWO, and national director of Legal Policy for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Canada. Suzie Chiodo is research associate, MADD Canada, and Andrew Murie is CEO, MADD Canada.

 

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