The Hard Core Drinking Driver

Without question, hard core drinking drivers are the single biggest threat where alcohol and road crashes are concerned.

In the ten years from 1986 to 1995, the percentage of drivers with blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of more than twice the legal limit remained virtually constant. Although drinking-driving fatalities have declined, there has been no change in fatalities involving hard core drinking drivers.

High-BAC drivers represent about one per cent of the cars on the road at night and on weekends. Yet they account for nearly half of all drivers killed at those times.

A Complex Challenge

Hard core drinking drivers share several characteristics:

• They drink frequently, and often to excess. Many are alcohol dependent.
• They repeatedly drive after drinking.
• When they drink and drive, their BAC is two to three times the legal limit.
• Many have previously been convicted for impaired driving and have driven while suspended.
• They resist changing their behavior, and are insensitive to anti-drinking-driving campaigns.

These offenders do not believe they are at risk of causing or being involved in a motor vehicle collision. From their perspective, it is always the other person who is at fault. Chronic drinking drivers are often unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.

The hard core drinking driver presents a complex and resistant safety challenge which calls for a combination of tactics.

After 12 Years, the Law Needs Review

Impaired driving is a federal offence. The Criminal Code of Canada prescribes minimum penalties, which provinces or territories may choose to increase. Provinces also control the reinstatement of the driving licenses of those who are convicted of impaired driving.

Canada’s impaired driving legislation was last amended 12 years ago. Yet 20 to 40 per cent of these criminal charges are dismissed or reduced, often on minor technicalities.

In 1995, the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) published a paper entitled Impact of the 1985 Amendments to the Drinking Driving Section of the Criminal Code of Canada. This paper showed that although there was improvement in the impaired driving problem during the 1980s, there was no evidence the progress was linked in any way to the 1985 amendment of the Criminal Code.

A re-examination of the federal impaired driving legislation is imperative for continued progress in Canada’s fight against impaired driving. One of the major considerations in this review must be how to deal with the hard core drinking driver. The review must include all aspects of enforcement, legislation, regulations, public education and awareness, rehabilitation and sentencing.

Towards an Effective National Strategy

Many of Canada’s provincial and territorial jurisdictions have implemented or are planning new measures to combat impaired driving. These include administrative license suspensions, ignition interlock programs, increased fines and longer prison sentences.

The Canada Safety Council commissioned TIRF to prepare a background paper on impaired driving countermeasures in Canada and elsewhere. The Hard Core Drinking Driver: Prevention Programs briefly outlines the experience with each countermeasure and states the consensus on its benefit, with references to key research papers. It provides a solid basis for the following TIRF recommendations, which the Canada Safety Council fully supports:

Introduce a tiered-BAC sentencing system. To address the hard core, the type and severity of sanctions for drivers with high BACs should be different.

Assess all offenders and treat those harmfully involved with alcohol. Combined with other sanctions, rehabilitation must address alcohol problems.

Consider cost-effective alternatives to incarceration. For example, home confinement and electronic monitoring.

Empower police to suspend immediately the licenses of impaired drivers.

Empower police to seize at roadside, and impound, the vehicles of those driving while under suspension or prohibition.

In all jurisdictions, require installation of ignition interlock breath testing devices* on the vehicles of repeat offenders as well as first-time offenders with high BACs.

All of these approaches have been tried with positive results. Indeed, some have already been implemented in various provinces. There is much experience upon which to build a national strategy.

The Hard Core Drinking Driver: Prevention Programs can be downloaded from the Canada Safety Council’s site.

* Interlock devices prevent drivers from starting their vehicle if they have been drinking.

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