Myth Busting - driving while impaired ain't no epidemic

Let's start with a quiz. During the holiday season in 2009 police from nearby communities stopped over 40,000 drivers as part of a program to crack down and expose drinking drivers. Your question: How many drivers got charged with breaking the drinking and driving laws? Answer to follow.





Two recent newspaper accounts from Northern Ontario caused my scanning eyes to stop, hover and read closely.
One was a report from an OPP detachment in the Espanola area reporting on the success of their RIDE ( Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere) program during the Christmas holiday season. This is a program which sees a squad of police officers set up a road block stopping every car on the road. The drivers are observed at close quarters by an officer standing at the driver's window. A conversation ensues. Early in the exchange the police will ask 'Have you had anything to drink of an alcoholic nature tonight?'

Regardless of the reply, if the officer senses that the driver has been drinking, the driver is asked to take a breath alcohol screening test ( not the official breathalyzer test). Of course any silly enough to admit to drinking automatically get the screening test. It the test reveals a blood alcohol level over .05 then one of 2 things happens. For mild cases - that is where the driver appears to be in control of her/his faculties, a warning is issued. That warning can now result in a 3 day driving suspension and confiscation of the vehicle, and notice to the driver's insurance company.
If the driver appears not to be in control of her/his faculties, or if the officer believes that the driver would blow over .08, then the driver is required to attend at the police station for a full fledged test. Failing that test leads to a criminal charge of blowing over .08, or impaired driving, or most typically both.
These charges tend to have a high conviction rate, with quite drastic consequences for the driver. Not least of those consequences is a loss of driving privileges for close to 15 months minimum. Outrageous increases in insurance premiums follow closely behind. And all of that is apart from the usual fine ( $1,000 typical openers where no accident and no injuries), and the inevitable lawyer bills.

Back to the story.
So the detachment stopped some 30,000 cars this season.
And can you guess how many drivers were charged criminally for driving while impaired (or blowing over .08) out of these 30,000 road side screening tests.
Well if you guessed (and I don't suppose anyone would) ZERO, you would be correct.
Say what? Not one driver in 30,000 was charged with blowing over the legal limit, or impaired driving?
Totally counterintuitive, and wholly unexpected was my first reaction. I restrained myself from thinking: Impossible.

A few days later the Sudbury Police Service released their results to the accomodating print journalists who reported it in the local daily paper. Same kind of report, with a different police force and a different locale. The number of stopped vehicles was about 12,000 if memory serves. Number of criminal impaired charges laid: ZERO.

A pattern, though difficult to fathom, was emerging.
Drinking and driving ain't happening.

While there will be many who will quibble, and offer stats to counter the RIDE reports, surely there will be a consensus that if there is a problem it is a Small problem these days. Zero out of 40,000 is not a coincidence. Math types will tell you that is a "statistically significant result".

But to follow the popular press, aided as they are by all sorts of well funded (government tax dollars in large part) special interest groups, you'd think the cops would have nailed hundreds of drunk drivers. Not one.
What we have here is a major disconnect between perception and reality.

And sadly, these misconceptions, in the nature of myths, drive public policy agendas, and government funded budgets for all manner of things - in the wrong direction. Very sad, but true.