Random Breath Testing: Taking Canada’s Poor Impaired Driving Record Seriously
Letter to the Editor
Submitted to The Globe and Mail
October 9, 2009
After years of tougher penalties and helpful, but incremental, changes, the federal government is considering a measure that should substantially reduce the number of Canadians who are killed and injured each year in alcohol-related crashes. Random breath testing (RBT) is consistently recognized as one of the most effective ways to deter impaired driving, and has been in place in most comparable democracies for as long as 30 years. It is time for Canada to join these world leaders in traffic safety and protect its citizens from needless crashes.
Impaired driving crashes represent Canada’s leading criminal cause of death, claiming 1,278 lives in 2006, or more than twice as many lives as all homicides combined. The number and percentage of alcohol-related crash deaths in Canada have increased since 1999. Despite all of the awareness campaigns, millions of Canadians continue to drink and drive. Why? Because they can do so with little fear of being stopped by police.
Even if stopped, the overwhelming majority of drinking drivers go undetected, even at sobriety checkpoints. Charge, conviction, and public survey data indicate that, on average, a person would have to drive impaired once a week for more than three years before being charged, and for over six years before being convicted.
Canada should give the police the powers they need to detect impaired drivers before they cause a crash. RBT allows police to screen a large number of drivers quickly, at roadside, to determine whether further investigation is required. If it is, drivers will be afforded all the procedural and constitutional protection that is normally available to suspected impaired drivers. RBT simply increases the probability that impaired drivers will be detected.
And research shows that, if there is an increased perception that impaired drivers will be detected, fewer people will drink and drive.
RBT has been in place in many countries, including Australia and much of the European Union, for decades. Although most of these countries have higher rates of per capita alcohol consumption than Canada’s, they have much lower rates of alcohol-related crash deaths. RBT has been crucial in their success. It is one of the most consistently effective impaired driving countermeasures, decreasing total fatal crashes by 20% or more.
Based on Canadian crash statistics, this could translate into hundreds of lives saved annually. In our view, this is more than worth the slight inconvenience that RBT would pose to Canadian drivers.
RBT is wholly consistent with other random screening procedures, which are accepted as a fact of modern life. Canadians cannot board a plane, enter many courtrooms or government buildings, or observe Parliamentary proceedings without being scanned and often subject to a physical search of their person and belongings. If random searches are justifiable in these circumstances, they are even more justifiable in the case of RBT, which addresses a far more widespread safety risk, and has the potential to substantially reduce crash deaths and injuries.
Driving is a licensed and heavily regulated activity. Drivers are already required to stop at random, answer routine questions, and provide licence and insurance information when requested by police. Providing a breath sample on a roadside screening device is simply an extension of these routine interventions. Research in other countries indicates that screening tests themselves take a matter of seconds, and that the total delay for drivers with a blood-alcohol concentration within legal limits is about two minutes.
Would RBT result in legal challenges? Certainly. But this is an inevitable result of almost any change to the criminal law. While RBT would likely be seen as infringing some Charter rights, it should be upheld as a reasonable limit that is demonstrably justifiable in a modern society. Given the serious threat to public safety posed by impaired drivers, the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld other enforcement measures, including random stops, random document checks, sobriety checkpoints, and physical coordination tests. The case for RBT is equally, if not more, compelling.
In any event, the potential for legal challenges is not a sufficient reason to reject a traffic safety measure that has proven effective around the world. Moreover, the costs of defending such a challenge are far outweighed by the reductions in impaired driving crashes, which are estimated to cost Canadians over $12.7 billion annually – not to mention the needless loss of human life.
For the vast majority of responsible road users, RBT will be a momentary inconvenience. They will be able to drive with the confidence that a greater percentage of impaired drivers are being removed from the roads. Without RBT, on the other hand, millions of impaired drivers will escape police detection, and will go on to drink and drive again.
All the tough sentences in the world will do nothing to reduce impaired driving if offenders go undetected. RBT will improve detection rates, deter impaired driving, and ultimately, make Canada’s roads much safer. In our view, Canadians deserve impaired driving legislation that actually has the potential to save lives.
Professor Robert Solomon, University of Western Ontario
Director of Legal Policy, MADD Canada
Professor Erica Chamberlain, University of Western Ontario
