B.C. drivers face toughest impaired driving laws in Canada
Posted September 19, 2010 10:41 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Starting Monday, B.C. drivers will face the toughest impaired driving and speeding penalties in the country. It is part of a plan to try to cut down on the number of people killed and injured by people who drink and drive or speed too much.
News1130 spoke with one mother whose world was shattered by an impaired driver.
“My precious four-year-old daughter Alexa was killed by an impaired driver.” Laurel Middelaer has told this story many times. “A child, my child, lay dead in a horse paddock.”
Alexa was killed in Delta in 2008. The woman behind the wheel of the car was found guilty of dangerous driving causing death and impaired driving causing death in late July.
Now, Middelaer is throwing her energy behind the province’s new impaired driving and speeding penalties.
If you fail a roadside breath test by blowing over 0.08 or refuse to give one, you face losing your license for three months and having your car impounded for a month. You could be slapped with at least $750 in fees, have to enroll in the Responsible Driver Program and have to get an inter-lock ignition for one year, you pay for it, and fines could hit $4,000.
If you’re caught speeding excessively three times in two years you could lose your car for two months.
The RCMP says the new rules will save traffic officers a lot of time. It says it can process a first-time impaired driver, who fails a breathalyzer on the side of the road, in less than half an hour.
Middelaer says it’s rewarding but making changes to the criminal justice system is the next step. “Perhaps we need specialized courts, that is been a recommendation to our province for years… that we have prosecutors that is their specialty. We have defense lawyers that specialize in that.”
