Drunk driving increased almost 50 per cent in Ottawa’s Capital ward between 2012 and 2013 and Ottawa law enforcement can’t explain why, but they think it’s a sign of good policing.
“We have no idea what impaired drivers are doing, we just know what our enforcement is doing,” said Sgt. John Kiss of the Ottawa Police Service and a board member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Ottawa.
“Maybe it was a single policeman that got transferred to Capital ward and really dedicated to impaired driving, made an arrest a month,” Kiss said.
He said the increase of 12 impaired driving arrests in Capital ward from 25 to 37 was not statistically significant.
Kiss said drunk driving in Ottawa is pretty consistent across the city and its wards from year to year.
According to Ottawa Police statistics, 700 people were arrested for impaired driving in Ottawa in 2009 and 676 people were arrested in 2012. Last year, 647 people were arrested for drunk driving.
Rideau-Vanier ward had the highest average arrest rate from 2012 to 2013 at 1.65 arrests per 1,000 people.
Average impaired driving rate per 1,000 by ward, 2012-2013
David Gilhooly, a criminal defense lawyer who specializes in drunk driving cases, thinks charges have actually decreased in Ottawa.
“I think there’s fewer than there were even 10 years ago even though there’s more rigid enforcement,” Gilhooly said.
But even without a compelling spike in impaired driving arrests, Kiss acknowledged that Capital ward could be a problem for the police because of the proximity of Byward Market bars.
The Ottawa Police Service partnered with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario in 2011 to start the Last Drink Program to trace the bar that over-served a customer before they were arrested for impaired driving.
Liquor inspectors use the information to focus their enforcement efforts on problem bars. The commission has a three-strikes policy in which bars are allowed three infractions before they lose their license, Kiss said.
Kiss declined to name specific establishments in Byward Market but said police are aware of several “bad children” bars in the area.
And the young adults that represent a significant portion of Gilhooly’s clients frequent those “bad children” bars.
Gilhooly said many of his clients are people in their early twenties who don’t understand in practical terms how many drinks will lead to a blood alcohol concentration exceeding 80 milligrams, or 0.08, the legal limit for a fully licensed driver in Ontario.
People 18 to 24 years old accounted for 25.8 per cent of all impaired driving arrests from 2009 to 2012, according to police statistics.
There is no hard-and-fast rule for determining a drinker’s limit because blood alcohol concentration is affected by factors such as how fast a person drinks, their gender and body weight and the amount of food in their stomach, according to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.
Ontario’s Smart Serve certification program for food service workers says drinkers should restrict themselves to one standard-size drink, such as a 341-ml bottle of beer or a 5-oz glass of wine, per hour.
Kiss said police are also concerned about young adults driving under the influence of drugs and have recently started to put more attention on drug-impaired driving enforcement.
“It’s been there all along we’re just getting better at recognizing it,” he said.
Kiss said there are technologies for roadside drug testing similar to the Breathalyzer test used for drunk driving. Ottawa Police Service currently does not use any roadside drug-testing technology.
Steven Del Duca, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, introduced legislation Oct. 21 that would see drug-impaired drivers face the same penalties as drunk drivers. The Liberals have a majority in Queen’s Park and it is expected to become law.
Impaired driving arrests by ward, 2012-2013
Ottawa impaired driving statistics, 2009-2012