NMA Canada Alert: National Focus on Impaired Driving Brings Tougher Laws
At a recent news conference Canadian Transport Minister Sam Hamad discussed several anti-impaired driving measures that the Ministry has pushed for. (This according to The Indiana Beverage Journal, January 2011 issue.)
The Ministry has clearly promoted harsher punishments for impaired driving nationwide. It also favors lowering the legal blood-alcohol level for drivers to 0.05; in acknowledging popular and political resistance to the idea in Quebec, Hamad said simply that "...Quebecers are not there yet."
Among the concrete results of the Ministry's push are tougher impaired driving laws in British Columbia (see this link for details), and a $2 million pilot project in Quebec over three years to increase awareness about impaired driving and increased use of random roadblocks.
Mr. Hamad also anounced that the national government is asking Ottawa to amend the Criminal Code to add that a driver found guilty of drunk driving for the fourth time would be considered a long-term offender.
While the National Motorists Association understands the serious threat to public safety that true impaired driving creates, it also is concerned about the excessive enforcement of numerous draconian laws and the imposition of more and more behavioral and technological regulations, such as mandated Breathalyzer ignition interlocks, on motorists -- even those who have never been guilty of impaired driving. You can learn about the NMA's positions on DUI laws here.
As for lowering the legal blood-alcohol level for drivers, this is not about drunk driving or highway safety, this is anti-drinking social engineering. People at 0.1 or 0.08 -- let alone people at 0.05 -- are not automatically "drunks drivers" and they are not the people who should be targeted for DWI enforcement. The average DWI violator is arrested with a BAC of 0.15 to 0.17 percent. Even in countries with extremely low legal BAC limits (e.g. Sweden at 0.02), the average DWI arrest involves a BAC of at least 0.15 percent. Lowered BAC levels are intended to intimidate casual and social drinkers and give the police unbridled discretion to test and arrest almost anyone who has been drinking.
It remains to be seen whether Quebecers and the rest of Canada "get there" and reduce the legal limit even further, but we are concerned that Canada, and the U.S. have already gone too far in the use of DUI laws to pursue neo-prohibitionist agendas.
Posted by National Motorists Association
