Tough laws against drunk driving produce results
Back when he was premier, Jacques Parizeau equated the Supreme Court of Canada with the leaning tower of Pisa. The suggestion being that it always leans one way, namely against Quebec.
It was nonsense then, and it remains so. The country’s highest court proved it once again this week with a ruling that, in effect, bolstered a Quebec initiative to toughen penalties for drunk driving by enabling authorities to confiscate the vehicles of repeat offenders.
The Supreme Court judgment overturned rulings by two Quebec judges, in an initial trial and on appeal, who sympathized with 64-year-old Alphide Manning, a poster boy for toughened drunk driving penalties, and refused Crown initiatives to have him deprived of his vehicle.
He is indeed a sad case. He is unemployed and living on welfare in a motel in a village near Baie-Comeau. He pleaded that his vehicle, a truck worth $1,000, was his only possession, and that he needed it to have a friend ferry him and his wife, both of whom are in poor health, the 20 kilometres to Baie-Comeau for hospital visits.
On the other hand, the Crown had sound reasons for seeking the confiscation of his vehicle, considering the risk he posed behind the wheel. When he was apprehended driving drunk in June 2010, it was the fifth time that he had been nabbed for the offence, the previous time being less than a year earlier. In addition, his record as a scofflaw included three convictions for breach of probation orders or undertakings.
The judgment validated an initiative announced earlier in the week by Quebec Justice Minister Bertrand St-Arnaud to further crack down on repeat offenders driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs by having their vehicles seized after a third offence.
Severe punishment for impaired driving, particularly for repeat offenders, is eminently justifiable given the potential fatal consequences every time someone takes to the road above the legal blood-alcohol limit. The provincial auto insurance board notes that, along with speeding, alcohol continues to be a major cause of fatal accidents on Quebec roads, accounting for nearly one-third of fatalities from 2005 to 2009 and another 20 per cent of auto-accident related injuries.
It is indeed encouraging that the situation has greatly improved over recent decades. The SAAQ reports that, from 1978 to 2008, the average number of alcohol-related road fatalities dropped to 200 from 800, resulting from a combination of awareness building, tougher laws and more stringent enforcement. Even so, drunk driving is a continuing scourge. Latest Statistics Canada figures show 90,000 impaired-driving cases nationwide in 2011, an uptick of 3,000 over the year before and the fourth increase in five years.
Seizing a person’s car is perhaps an extreme measure, but not so for recidivist drunk driv- ers who are undeterred by the suspension of their driver’s licences. Taking their cars away after a third offence is no guarantee that they will be kept off the road, but it is an additional deterrent, both for those who suffer the punishment and for those who face the seizure of their vehicle if they reoffend.
St-Arnaud said he was inspired to push for mandatory vehicle seizures for third-time offenders by British Columbia’s handling of repeat impaired driving convictions, which includes seizing vehicles.
Late last year, B.C. Justice Minister Shirley Bond reported that, in each of the past two years since the province instituted its harsher penalties, there has been a 46 per cent drop in the number of road crash fatalities, as compared with rates in each of the previous five years.
Practice shows that tough laws against impaired driving produce the desired results. The lives saved are worth more than the cost of any hardship visited on scofflaws, no matter how sad their circumstances.