Edmonton amongst worst Canadian cities for impaired driving
City's rate of police-reported impaired driving 7th highest in Canada last year
Edmonton ranked in Canada's 10 worst cities for impaired driving as reported by police in 2015, according to a Statistics Canada report.
Police filed 226 reports of impaired driving per 100,000 Edmontonians last year. In a city of nearly 900,000 people, that number translates to about 2,000 reports overall—or roughly five every day.
That rate made Edmonton the seventh-worst city for impaired driving in Canada.
| Highest rates of police-reported impaired driving per 100,000 residents in 2015, by census metropolitan area | |
| St. John's | 411 |
| Kelowna | 323 |
| Regina | 311 |
| Victoria | 272 |
| Moncton | 266 |
| Saskatoon | 228 |
| Edmonton | 226 |
| Abbotsford-Mission, B.C | 218 |
| Halifax | 217 |
| Saguenay | 217 |
Edmonton's rate is nearly four times higher than in Kingston, Ont., the city with the lowest rate of impaired driving.
Meanwhile St. John's ended the year with 411 reports per 100,000 people, the highest rate in Canada.
Alberta 2nd worst for impaired driving
Provincially, Alberta had the second-highest rate of impaired driving in 2015, ending the year with 314 incidents per 100,000 Albertans.
In the first 10 months of this year, Alberta RCMP have charged nearly 4,000 people with impaired driving. Dozens of those incidents involved injuries or deaths, RCMP said.
December is an awareness month for impaired-driving enforcement in Alberta. RCMP launched the campaign with a CheckStop blitz on Dec. 3.
The check-stops are a reminder that officers are watching for impaired drivers during the holiday season, RCMP said.