New Drunk Driving Law Oversold

TheTyee.ca

Just about everyone would agree that driving while impaired by alcohol is a very bad thing. Even those who get caught usually agree, at least in principle, that it's a very bad thing. In a manner not so different from that of Premier Gordon Campbell, they most often will be genuinely remorseful and will endeavour to point out that only on the rarest of occasions would they find themselves caught up in such an event.

Hence, virtually no one is going to complain because Solicitor General Rich Coleman has introduced legislation that he says will amount to a crackdown on impaired drivers in the province. Everyone agrees that providing the police with new tools to make it easier for them to get impaired drivers off the road - and to send a strong message that drinking-and-driving won't be tolerated in the province - is the sort of legislation that ought to be encouraged.

The problem with the legislation introduced this week is that it just doesn't live up to the hype that Coleman is giving it. A detailed reading of the actual legislation shows that the changes are much more hedged around by ifs, buts, and maybes than the Solicitor General would like us to believe.

Rehab is not a must

Take, for instance, the idea of requiring impaired drivers to undertake some type of rehabilitation program before they can get their driver's licence back. It's an idea that will meet with widespread applause, especially in the case of repeat offenders who have shown they have such a serious alcohol abuse problem that they can't control their behaviour.

Here's what Coleman's news release says: "For the first time in British Columbia, drivers with a Criminal Code drinking-driving conviction, and other repeat offenders, will have to complete a rehabilitation program before they can drive again."

But here's what the actual legislation says: "This section (the one about completing a program) applies if a person has a driving record that, in the opinion of the Superintendent (of Motor Vehicles) is unsatisfactory or the Superintendent considers that, with respect to the person's driving skills, fitness or ability to drive and operate a motor vehicle, it is in the public interest for the person to attend or participate in" a program.

There's absolutely nothing in the legislation that makes the program mandatory for anyone who's been convicted of impaired driving under the Criminal Code. Only for those whom the Superintendent deems to require it.

And indeed, Coleman's ministry's own more detailed backgrounder states that completion of a program may  (emphasis mine) be a condition of retaining or recovering a driver's licence for those with convictions or with repeated 24-hour prohibitions (three in a five-year period is the example given). The backgrounder also points out that the program won't necessarily be a full program to deal with alcohol dependency. Although that could be involved for some drivers, for others it could involve only "an education program focusing on the harmful effects and consequences of drinking and driving." Another option would be "an intensive counseling program to change drinking and driving behaviour."

More maybes

Similar conditions hedge the use of an ignition interlock program for those who have been convicted of an impaired driving offence under the Criminal Code at least three times. The ministry's backgrounder says that when those individuals (who will have to complete a program, a clause that's in the legislation already) apply to get their licences back, the Superintendent "may require the use of an ignition interlock device, which requires a driver to submit a breath sample before the vehicle will start."

The minister and his staff have also been stressing the new provision which allows peace officers to immediately impound vehicles when the driver has been given a 24-hour driving suspension for borderline impaired driving, or when he or she has been served a notice of a driving prohibition. But again, the actual legislation specifies that the police officer is allowed to impound the vehicle only if he or she "believes that impoundment is necessary to prevent the driver from driving or operating the motor vehicle before the prohibition expires."

In some instances, in fact, the previous minimum penalties are actually being reduced under Coleman's new legislation. In particular, the legislation now requires a minimum jail term of seven days for someone who's convicted of driving while prohibited for doing so (most often because of convictions for impaired driving). But the new legislation abandons the idea of a required jail term for these drivers, although it does increase the minimum fine that someone caught in such circumstances must pay, up to $500 from $300.

Positive steps

To be sure, there are quite a number of elements of the new legislation that will increase flexibility for police officers and will increase some penalties for offences that often go hand in hand with drunk driving. A roadside screening device (essentially a type of handheld breathalyzer machine) will be able to be used in issuing roadside suspensions, rather than requiring a full breathalyzer test for any driver who doesn't go along with the 24-hour suspension. That will save officer time, and therefore be valuable to police forces.

The length of time for which vehicles can be impounded in prohibited driving cases is increased from 30 days to 60 for a first offence, and up to 90 for repeat offences.

And one of the most valuable changes may be the one that will allow ICBC to refuse to issue car insurance for those who owe fines, not just under the Motor Vehicle Act as is now the case, but also under provincial liquor legislation. Those are charges for offences such as drinking in a public place and, most importantly for young people, underage drinking. Currently fewer than half of these tickets are paid because it's become well-known on the street that the government has never had a system before by which to compel payment. In some high schools in British Columbia, charges of underage drinking have become such a joke that students thumb their noses at authority by papering their lockers with the paper tickets.

They might think twice if they realized it was going to make it that much more difficult for them to get a driver's licence or car insurance. And if they knew they had to pay the tickets, they might make an effort to avoid committing the offences in the first place.

In total, there's not a thing wrong with anything Coleman is doing in his new legislation. But no one should be lulled into thinking that he's invented anything that even vaguely resembles a cure for impaired driving on B.C. highways.

Barbara McLintock is the Victoria-based contributing editor for The Tyee.