Despite having more than a million registered vehicles in Calgary, police are seeing fewer impaired drivers on our streets.
Since 2014, officers in the traffic section have seen a 31 per cent reduction in impaired charges.
“It’s significant,” said Traffic Unit Staff Sgt. Paul Stacey. “I’m optimistic because it’s a step in the right direction.”
While it’s hard to pinpoint the cause of the drop, there are several factors that police say may have played a role.
“For example, the new .05 law that came in in 2012 from the provincial government, I think that’s had some impact,” said Stacey. “I think socially there’s been some impact in that it’s just not acceptable any more. I mean, it’s never been acceptable but 20 or 25 years ago it was much more common than it is now.”
Denise Dubyk has been with MADD Canada for 15 years and she says the drop may be linked to education programs for young people.
“It’s the new generation that are hearing things that the other generations didn’t hear. They hear about the loss and they hear about the tragedy of their friends and they don’t want to see that happen anymore,” said Dubyk. “It’s a different culture and I’m so happy to see that.”
A drunk driver took Dubyk son-in-law's life. She says while there are fewer people charged for impaired driving, there are still drunk drivers out there and they need to be stopped.
“The public now knows they can call 911 because impaired driving is an emergency, and those numbers speak for themselves and I think that as the public becomes engaged they realize that, ‘hey, this is everyone's problem, not just MADD's not just the police’,” said Dubyk
Veteran police officers say 20 years ago they regularly saw drivers with blood alcohol levels four times the legal limit of .08 and even higher.
They're not seeing numbers like that today. They say even though the reduction in impaired charges is positive, they won't be scaling back their enforcement any time soon.
With files from Kevin Fleming
