Too many drivers ignore impaired-driving warnings, Checkstop numbers show: police

Winnipeg Police Service officers found more than 100 drivers impaired behind the wheel after pulling over nearly 3,000 vehicles during their annual holiday checkstop campaign.

A total of 2,785 vehicles were pulled over during the holiday season. Police found 102 impaired motorists, resulting in 15 criminal impaired driving charges, 77 immediate roadside prohibitions and 146 Highway Traffic Act notices. Nine of the impaired motorists tested positive for cannabis.

Const. Alex Peterson, the WPS impaired driving countermeasures co-ordinator, said one drunk or high driver is too many.

“Each and every one of these — over 100 impaired drivers — has that very probability of causing a serious collision,” he said.

“That’s the message we’d like to spread to all Winnipeggers and all families. Everyone, as a society, it’s something that we should be re-enforcing and telling each other that this is not something we should be doing.”

He said the message is not getting through to everyone.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “There is still a lot of continuing education to be done to discourage impaired driving and promote safety for everyone.

“Saving lives, at the end of the day, is what we’re striving for, preventing serious collisions… the number is simply still too high.”

He encouraged Winnipeggers to talk about the dangers of impaired driving.

“We can work on that together, as a society,” he said. “Wherever you are, spread that message, have that conversation with your loved ones, your family, your co-workers. Plan ahead.”

Police stopped fewer drivers this past season compared to the year prior, when 3,933 were pulled over and 124 were found to be impaired.

“In comparison to last year, overall, I would say (this year is) very comparable — unfortunately,” Peterson said.

“Even more so because we had less vehicles come through our checkpoints, but we still had close to last year’s numbers, over 100 impaired drivers were detected.”

Peterson said he wasn’t sure why fewer drivers hit checkpoints, noting the latest campaign set up the same number of locations.

He said fewer drivers may have chosen the routes that WPS had set up on, or that fewer people were out and about overall.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca