BEFORE YOU TURN THE KEY
•If you feel different after drinking, you are impaired.
•If someone asks if you are OK to drive, say no. The person has asked you for a reason.•Don’t be afraid to admit to yourself you are impaired.
SOURCE: Cpl. Pat Moran, Integrated Impaired Driving Enforcement Unit
You sure you’re OK to drive?
Mounties’ top drunk-driving hunter says most are surprised they’re over the limit
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MIDDLETON — The head of a police unit that has been hunting down impaired drivers in southwest Nova Scotia is warning drivers to make wiser choices about drinking and driving.
"You may be impaired sooner than you think," RCMP Cpl. Pat Moran of the Integrated Impaired Driving Enforcement Unit of officers from Kentville and Bridgewater, said in a recent interview.
Cpl. Moran said most of the 85 drivers whom the four RCMP and two municipal officers have charged with impaired driving since the pilot project started last December were not expecting to blow over the legal limit.
"Approximately 50 showed very little if any signs of impairment other than the odour of alcohol on their breath," he said.
"Many of them were very surprised to see Fail come up on the roadside device."
He said there is a lesson to be learned from this.
"Just because you think you are not impaired doesn’t mean you are not. If you have to think about it, you probably are," he said. "If you have to ask yourself, ‘Should I be driving?’ you probably shouldn’t."
The project is funded by several provincial departments through a cost-sharing agreement in which the RCMP provide vehicles and equipment, and pay most of the cost of keeping the six full-time members, from Kentville and Bridgwater, patrolling 27,000 kilometres of roads in southwest Nova Scotia.
Cpl. Moran said the members have put 160,000 kilometres on their vehicles in the first seven months of the project.
The unit has imposed 112 licence suspensions of 24 hours’ duration. The Motor Vehicle Act allows officers to take away a driver’s licence for 24 hours and impound a vehicle at the driver’s expense if a warning indicator shows on the alcohol screening device.
Cpl. Moran said the 24-hour suspension does not result in a criminal record because no charge can be laid, but it does show up on the driving record of the person suspended.
"You only have to be halfway to exceeding the legal limit," he said. "For some people that could be as little as a couple of beers. Someone in a bar who consumes three or four drinks over two to three hours should be wary of driving."
If the roadside device comes up with Fail, officers will require the driver to be screened by a breathalyzer, which is used in a controlled environment such as a police detachment. It provides a reading that shows the precise alcohol content of the person’s blood.
The Criminal Code sets the blood-alcohol level for impaired driving at 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood.
Even a first-time conviction carries at least a stiff fine and a minimum one-year licence suspension, he said.
Cpl. Moran said drivers need to be reminded that having a driver’s licence is a privilege, not a right; and it can be revoked or suspended at any time.
"For a lot of people, to lose the right to drive could be devastating," he said. "But being arrested and charged is a better option than hurting yourself or someone else."
He urged drivers to make wise choices.
"Someone is counting on you," Cpl. Moran said. "They would rather see you than me at their door."
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