Canada’s Road Safety Vision 2010 includes a number of ambitious targets to help achieve our collective goal of the safest roads in the world by 2010. The Strategy to Reduce Impaired Driving 2010 (STRID 2010) calls for a 40% reduction in the percentage of deaths and serious injuries related to impaired driving collisions. During the 1980s there was a substantial improvement related to impaired driving. However, since that time the pace of improvement has slowed and perhaps plateaued. In order to achieve these goals, new and innovative programs need to be examined to make further reductions in the number of people killed and seriously injured in collisions involving an impaired driver. STRID 2010 details target groups and recommended options for pursuing our vision and pursuing further improvements related to impaired driving. STRID 2010 has identified four specific target groups, the hard-core drinker, first time offenders, young/new drivers and social drinkers. The latter three groups have a number of elements in common. It is expected that they will have little or no experience with legal system as it relates to impaired driving. Consequently, how their first interaction with the legal system progresses may impact their subsequent behaviour. The message should be that impaired driving is a serious offence; even at lower BAC levels and that the consequence of engaging in these behaviours are serious. One of the key policy and legislation initiatives contained in STRID 2010 is a recommendation for Canadian jurisdictions to record and track roadside short-term license suspensions on the driver record as a safety management tool. The primary motivation for this recommendation is a need to revise the way multiple offenders are defined and identified for appropriate remedial measures. It has been noted that because of resource constraints, enforcement agencies in many Canadian jurisdictions may be substituting short-term 12 or 24-hr administrative licence suspensions for the more rigorous and serious criminal processing of drinking and driving offenders. In many jurisdictions these suspensions are not tracked and no follow-up action is associated with them. Under this scenario, an offender may accumulate several suspensions and will never be identified as a repeat offender. This approach potentially leads to a sub-optimal intervention strategy since persons who could be multiple offenders get identified as such much later than they should have been and therefore are not subjected to the prescribed remedial action in a timely fashion. In addition, this sends an inconsistent message to the offender, that low BAC level infractions are not taken seriously. Currently there is no national consistency regarding roadside short-term suspensions. Not all jurisdictions have programs, and those that do range from suspension of 12-24 hours for a first offence. Most of these programs do not record the suspension or escalate the suspension for subsequent infractions. The STRID 2010 recommendation on short-term suspensions is a reflection of the view that keeping the status quo will be inadequate for achieving the goals of Vision 2010. The purpose of this project is to develop a proposed roadside suspension program which addresses this situation. The proposed strategy is intended to be visionary and in the spirit of Vision 2010. Its intent is to provide guidance for change in the way short-term suspensions are currently handled to drive us towards the goals of vision 2010 for impaired driving. In the proposed strategy, the short-term suspension is significant enough to be seen as serious and escalates for repeat infractions within a specified time period. An effort has been made such that a first suspension is not so long as to create undo hardship but does send the message that this is a serious issue which must be addressed. It is understood that many jurisdictions have existing programs for roadside suspensions. Any changes to existing legislation are likely to take place over a period of time and must interface with existing programs and legislation in each jurisdiction. The elements in the strategy are proposed for consideration when the existing program is being renewed or a new program is being designed. (Author/publisher)
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