Impaired Drivers Hospitalized After Crashes Escape Serious Charges

Hospitalized suspects seldom charged or convicted for impaired driving deaths and injuries due to shortcomings in law around collection of BAC evidence.

Oakville/Ontario/June 29, 2010 – Few impaired drivers who are hospitalized following a crash are charged, let alone convicted, for the thousands of deaths and injuries that they cause each year.

A 2004 British Columbia study found only 11% of hospitalized drivers with BACs over .08% were convicted of any Criminal Code impaired driving offence. Similarly, only 16% of injured alcohol-impaired drivers admitted to an Alberta trauma centre between 1995 and 2003 were convicted of any federal impaired driving offence, despite having a mean BAC of .19%, or almost two and half times the Criminal Code limit. A third study found that just 6.7% of impaired drivers who had been hospitalized at a British Columbia tertiary care centre following crashes between 1999 and 2003 were convicted of impaired driving charges, while follow up over a four and a half year period indicated that 30.7% of the injured drivers engaged in subsequent impaired driving activity. These rates may be compared with those of Sweden, where 85% of hospitalized impaired drivers were convicted of impaired driving.

“An impaired driver who causes a crash and ends up in hospital stands a very good chance of avoiding criminal charges because the law makes it so difficult for police and medical personnel to collect admissible BAC evidence,” said MADD Canada’s Chief Executive Officer Andrew Murie.

MADD Canada is calling on the federal government to amend the Criminal Code to make it easier for the police to demand blood samples from hospitalized suspects and to clarify when medical staff can provide information to the police.

The problems with Canada’s blood provision laws are outlined in an article in the April 2010 issue of the Windsor Review of Legal and Social Issues, co-authored by MADD Canada’s Director of Legal Policy, Professor Robert Solomon, and Dr. Erika Chamberlain, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario. The article, “Enforcing Impaired Driving Laws Against Hospitalized Drivers: The Intersection of Healthcare, Patient Confidentiality, and Law Enforcement,” can be viewed on MADD Canada’s website at www.madd.ca.

The shortcomings of the current system are apparent in national charge and conviction rates. While impairment-related crashes caused 1,278 deaths in 2006, only 137 drivers were charged with impaired driving causing death and only 36 were convicted. Similarly, there were 75,374 impairment-related crash injuries, yet only 842 drivers were charged with impaired driving causing bodily harm and only 233 convictions were recorded.

“With some relatively modest changes to the Criminal Code, we can increase the likelihood that admissible BAC evidence is available, while clarifying the obligations of health care professionals and maintaining the rights of patients,” said Professor Solomon. “These changes would bring Canadian law in line with most comparable developed democracies, and prevent hospitals from becoming a safe haven for impaired drivers who kill and injure others.”

About MADD Canada

MADD Canada (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) is a national, charitable organization that is committed to stopping impaired driving and supporting the victims of this violent crime. With volunteer-driven groups in more than 100 communities across Canada , MADD Canada aims to offer support services to victims, heighten awareness of the dangers of impaired driving and save lives and prevent injuries on our roads.

For more information, contact:

Andrew Murie, Chief Executive Officer, MADD Canada, 1-800-665-6233 or 905-829-8805, ext. 224.

Robert Solomon, Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario and MADD Canada Director of Legal Policy, 519-661-3603.