Starting this Friday, Dec. 5, Sunshine Coast RCMP will be increasing their impaired driving checks for National Impaired Driving Enforcement Day.
The day will be the start to the RCMP’s holiday season Counter Attack campaign.
Every year, police across Canada respond to collisions where impaired drivers have injured or killed people because they chose to drive while they were impaired. Impaired driving is entirely preventable, and has immense costs and devastating effects in communities such as the Sunshine Coast. Twenty-seven per cent of motor vehicle fatalities involve impaired driving, and therefore impaired driving enforcement is a national priority of the RCMP.
Const. Harrison Mohr highlights how impaired driving continues to be an issue here on the Sunshine Coast, after charges of refusing to provide a breath sample were forwarded against a young man last Saturday, Nov. 29.
“This young man chose to drive after leaving a local pub, and rolled the truck he was driving in West Sechelt,” said Mohr. “He made the conscious decision to drive, and that decision easily could have killed him, the three passengers he had with him, or any other person on the roads that night.”
Mohr said that luckily in this instance no one was seriously injured, but it could have been much worse.
RCMP will be targeting impaired drivers throughout this holiday season, setting up road checks all over the Coast, and looking for drivers impaired by both drugs and alcohol.
Mohr asks the community to speak up and take a stand against impaired driving.
“If you see someone getting behind the wheel after they've been drinking, say something, or call 911,” said Mohr. “Sometimes one friend encouraging another not to drive can go a lot further than any message from the police.”
For those who do decide to drive after drinking too much, RCMP have a warning for those individuals: “If you choose to drive while impaired, will be looking for you, and we are taking a zero-tolerance approach to all impaired drivers.”
