Tougher laws on the way for impaired drivers

The provincial government is one step closer to making changes to legislation dealing with impaired and careless drivers.

Amendments to the Highway Traffic Act, Bill 27, is now before the House of Assembly.

In the bill, there are several proposed changes in enforcement for impaired drivers.

These include authorizing police to use random stops of vehicles as a means to determine whether drivers are impaired, driving while having a suspended licence or driving without insurance, among other serious offenses.

The changes would also expand upon police officers' powers of arrest without warrant for more serious offences; increase the current 24-hour suspension to a minimum of seven days (14 days for a repeat offence) for drivers with a blood alcohol level of between .05 per cent and .08 per cent; introducing a 90-day suspension for a driver whose blood alcohol is .08 per cent or more; and reducing the allowable blood alcohol level to 0.0 per cent, from the current .05 per cent, for drivers accompanying a novice driver.

Welcome news

Florence Higgins, past-president of Bay St. George chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving says the proposed changes are welcome news for the organization, and have been a long time coming.

"MADD Canada has lobbied for a lot of these legislation changes for years," she says. "We just came back from a regional conference in Chester, NS, and a lot of this stuff was talked about then."

Ms. Higgins says she thinks government is now seeing the impact impaired driving is having on the public.

"With death and injury and everything and it's time to stop it or try to stop it. There's going to be people, regardless of what the laws are, that are still going to drink and drive but the thing is we're looking at a harsher punishment and hopefully that will change somebody's opinion and will stop them from driving."

One item of particular interest to Ms. Higgins is the proposed rule that would allow RCMP to make random vehicle stops. In the past MADD and RCMP have had to publicize road stops. Older legislation considered it a person's right to know when and where a checkpoint would be.

"We've had an outcry from the public here ourselves. Our MADD telephone line would go crazy the first few times we publicized it with people asking why we were doing it," she says.

"When you're letting everybody know where you're to they're not going to be driving there. It was legislation and we had to do it. I think it should be unknown where you're to. A person who's not doing anything wrong don't mind getting stopped at a checkpoint if it's for people's safety."

Other proposed changes to the Highway Traffic Act under Bill 27 allow for bigger fines for speeding in school zones and also to prohibit dangerous driving habits such as using electronic devices like cell phones and GPS devices while the vehicle is in motion.

All drivers will be affected by the new legislation except police, ambulance and fire vehicles.

reporter@thegeorgian.ca