Estevan had enjoyed a lot of progress in the past 12 months in its fight against impaired driving.
A check of the monthly police stats, released at the Estevan board of police commissioners meetings, showed that the number of cases of impaired driving was down significantly compared with the previous year.
We were still seeing a few cases of impaired driving each month, but it was a marked improvement from a few years ago, when we often had a few each week.
You can cite any reason you want for that reduction – increased enforcement, high-visibility check stops, fewer transient workers in the community, the new Mothers Against Drunk Driving chapter, the names of impaired drivers appearing in the Mercury – but the bottom line is that the Estevan Police Service (EPS) has been arresting fewer people for impaired driving than in previous years.
At least until recently.
The EPS apprehended six people for impaired driving-related charges in the first two weeks of July. That’s three people each week. There have been months this year in which the EPS hasn’t had to arrest six people for impaired driving.
Perhaps we should expect to have more cases of impaired driving this year, and we shouldn’t be startled by the recent spike in impaired driving cases. After all, cannabis possession for recreational purposes has been legal in Canada for almost a year.
You knew that once cannabis became legal, the number of people using the drug would go up, which meant the number of people driving while high would also increase.
Most people who are using marijuana aren’t going to climb behind the wheel, just like most people who have a few drinks aren’t going to be driving.
But you’re still going to get some who are irresponsible and will drive while impaired, regardless of whether that impairment is by alcohol or drug.
A couple of impaired driving cases this month have been for people impaired by drug rather than impaired by alcohol.
But it’s still frustrating to see the number of impaired driving cases on the rise in Estevan.
The Estevan Police Service has taken a zero-tolerance approach to impaired driving in recent years. Those who have been in Estevan for a few years will remember when the EPS decided to take a very hard line against the issue in October 2015, when there were a number of high-profile impaired driving-related cases.
In that first weekend of the crackdown, it would have been pretty difficult to drive while impaired.
Some of the largest check stops in the city’s history occurred in that fall of 2015.
While the EPS never wavered in its desire to take impaired drivers off the road, the efforts were ramped up further about 18 months ago with an impaired driving summit in the city, when they talked about starting the MADD chapter, releasing the names of impaired drivers to the media working more closely with licensed establishment owners and reinforcing the notion that impaired driving won’t be tolerated in the community.
The numbers are evidence that the efforts have been working, at least until recently.
It’s hard to say why we’re seeing a sudden resurgence in the number of cases, whether it’s due to more instances of impaired driving due to drug, the message now starting to fall on deaf ears, or the onset of summer, when people are out and about more often.
Or it could be a fluke, a short-term rise in the numbers that will be accompanied by a return to the number of arrests seen in recent months.
We hope the message hasn’t fallen on deaf ears; there’s too much on the line with public safety for people to ignore the warnings about the threats of impaired driving.
But it might be time for the police to send out a message to the public, reminding them of the potential consequences of driving while drunk.
In the meantime, it means signs will be moved to indicate where impaired drivers have been caught in the community, and more names of alleged impaired drivers will be appearing in the paper.
It’s just too bad that some people still think it’s acceptable to drive while impaired.
