Impaired driving ‘up dramatically’
RCMP commanding officer says numbers climbing despite fewer cars on the road
P.E.I. is seeing a significant increase in impaired drivers on the roads.
This was a key message heard by members of the legislative assembly during a meeting of the standing committee on health and social development on Wednesday.
RCMP Chief Supt. Jennifer Ebert said there have been 185 charges of impaired driving in RCMP jurisdictions on P.E.I. as of Oct. 1. This figure does not include impaired driving charges from other police jurisdictions of Charlottetown, Summerside and Kensington.
Ebert also said there have been seven additional charges of impaired driving in RCMP jurisdictions since the beginning of the month.
All of this has occurred in a year that has seen dramatically few visitors to P.E.I. due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the disruptions of the pandemic have likely played a role in the increase.
“Impaired driving is up. And it's up dramatically," Ebert said.
"There's tens of thousands of less cars that are on the roads. However, we've already surpassed the 2018 number for impaired drivers on the roads."
Ebert said there were 173 impaired driving charges recorded in 2018 by the RCMP in P.E.I. In 2019, there were 222.
Ebert added the impaired driving charges included both drug and alcohol impairment charges.
She said the charges involving impaired driving are not concentrated in any demographic or age group.
“It’s everybody across the board,” Ebert said.
Ebert said two factors contributing to the high rate of impaired drivers are alcoholism and continued perceptions of acceptability of impaired driving in P.E.I.
“Addressing the addictions issue is one area,” Ebert said.
"However, it really comes back to driver behaviour and the perception across the Island that it is everybody's responsibility in relation to impaired driving. You don't let your loved one leave."
She added that there have been nine traffic-related fatalities in P.E.I. this year, some of which have been related to alcohol.
Ebert also said law enforcement personnel have seen an increase in seizures of methamphetamine in 2020.
Ebert, who was invited to speak to the standing committee about the impacts observed by law enforcement personnel related to mental health, said law enforcement personnel have seen a decrease in calls related to mental health issues.
"Mental health calls for service have actually been down over the past two years. Island-wide, 6.97 per cent (lower), compared to the same period in 2019," Ebert said.
"RCMP jurisdictions, Charlottetown jurisdiction and Kensington all saw a decrease in mental health calls for service, whereas Summerside actually saw a slight increase."
Ebert said the RCMP has seen close to a 14 per cent reduction in mental health calls for service in the first nine months of 2020 compared to 2019.
But, she added, these numbers only included instances that were severe in nature, where mental health was categorized as the primary factor in the call.
Instances in which mental health was considered a secondary factor would not be included in these figures.
Ebert said the biggest decreases were observed between April and June.
Speaking to the same standing committee in late September, Dr. Heather Keizer, Health P.E.I.’s chief of mental health and addictions services, told MLAs that she had observed a decrease in demand for mental health and addictions services in the early months of the pandemic.
She suggested this was because following COVID-19 public health social isolation guidelines allowed individuals a “focus for their energy”.