35 impaired driving incidents in 2nd week of Winnipeg holiday checkstop program

Winnipeg police are reporting what they're calling "alarming" numbers following the second week of their annual holiday checkstop program.

Police reported 35 impaired driving incidents during the week, including one involving a driver who had a five-year-old child in the back seat.

The numbers are not just a safety concern, but "a call to action," the Winnipeg Police Service said in a Tuesday social media post.

The second week of the program, which launched Dec. 3 and runs throughout the month, saw 1,018 vehicles stopped, with 3.43 per cent of drivers stopped being impaired, police said. 

That resulted in six impaired driving charges and issued 29 immediate roadside prohibitions. Police also gave 37 traffic offence notices, executed one warrant and had one motorist test positive for cocaine.

Police also said two drivers were found passed out behind the wheel, and another continued driving after sideswiping multiple parked vehicles.

Police wanted to bring attention to "some of the serious consequences … of these different encounters," Sgt. Stephane Fontaine told CBC.

"It's not just the ones that are having a few drinks and getting stopped. These are people that are drinking to excess and still deciding to drive, which is a very, very dangerous thing to be doing," said Fontaine, the impaired driving countermeasures co-ordinator for the Winnipeg Police Service.

During the program's first week, police stopped 1,219 vehicles and reported 21 roadside warnings or breathalyzer failures. They issued 12 traffic offence notices and laid two charges for impaired driving.

While police run the holiday checkstop program each year, Fontaine said officers are always on the lookout for impaired drivers.

"It's highlighted during the holiday season, but don't kid yourself. Our traffic division members and all of our general patrol members are actively doing impaired driving enforcement 365 days a year. So that never stops," he said.

'Disturbing number of people' not getting message: MADD

The numbers Winnipeg police are seeing this year are "very similar to what we're hearing from police services across the country," says the national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada.

"There's just a disturbing number of people who just aren't getting the message that impaired driving is wrong," said Tanya Hansen Pratt.

"So we need to repeat the message over and over again until people finally understand that driving while impaired, whether by alcohol or drugs, is not safe, and they will get caught."

She believes Manitoba has "robust impaired driving laws," but says there's always room for improvements. 

With the holiday season in full swing, her message to Canadians is fourfold:

• Don't drive impaired.
• Never get into a vehicle with a suspected impaired driver.
• Plan ahead.
• Call 911 if you suspect an impaired driver.

"I think it's really important to understand that people don't get behind the wheel and think, 'You know what, I might get charged today if I do this,'" Hansen Pratt said.

"No one ever thinks they'll go to jail. No one thinks they're going to take someone else's life or cause catastrophic injury."

'Zero tolerance': mother of woman killed by drunk driver

Karen Reimer, whose daughter was killed when her vehicle was hit by a drunk driver in 2022, says the latest numbers are "very upsetting."

"I think any time we hear anything about impaired drivers, especially fatalities, it immediately opens the wounds that aren't even really healed," she said Wednesday.

"One person on the road impaired could take somebody's loved one's life."

Her 24-year-old daughter, Jordyn, was driving a vehicle hit by a truck in the Transcona area in the early morning hours of May 1, 2022.

She was the designated driver for friends the night she was killed.

The driver who hit her blew through a stop sign. He had consumed nine or 10 drinks the night before the fatal crash and was driving more than 100 km/h in the residential neighbourhood, a court heard last year. He was sentenced to six years for impaired driving causing death and one year for leaving the scene of an accident after pleading guilty.

Karen Reimer believes Winnipeg police are taking the right approach by requiring all drivers pulled over by a checkstop to submit a breath test, which she thinks is a good way to catch individuals who are trying to sneak by the stops.

"I think the message has to be that it has to be zero tolerance," she said.

Manitoba Public Insurance says as of Dec. 11, impaired driving was a factor in 13 deaths and 86 injuries on Manitoba this year.

As well, 2,164 drivers have been caught driving impaired so far this year, MPI told CBC in a statement. All of them would have received a penalty on their driver safety rating, which impacts premiums for all Manitoba drivers, MPI said.

A roadside study from 2022 found the number of drivers testing positive for alcohol jumped from 0.6 per cent in 2016 to 3.6 per cent in 2022.

Winnipeg police said drivers can expect to see a heightened enforcement of impaired driving legislation for the final two weeks of December.

35 impaired driving incidents in 2nd week of Winnipeg holiday checkstop program

3 days ago

Duration 2:16

Winnipeg police are reporting what they're calling alarming numbers following the second week of the annual holiday checkstop program. They say there were 35 impaired driving incidents during the week, including one involving a driver who had a five-year-old child in the back seat.