(Photo credit: Daniel Stockman/Creative Commons)
When a person gets behind the wheel while impaired, they’re endangering themselves and other drivers, cyclists and pedestrians around them.
Recently, the federal government proposed tougher legislation, the Dangerous and Impaired Driving Act, to crackdown on drunk drivers. The government committed to harsher consequences in its 2013 throne speech.
“We are sending a strong signal to those who choose to drive impaired, that this behaviour is not only unacceptable but is also creating a serious risk to public safety and putting everyone on the road at risk,” said Minister of Justice and Attorney General Peter MacKay in a press release.
“Those who break the law must face the consequences of their actions and not at the expense of the innocent lives of law-abiding Canadians.”
Some of the tougher penalties proposed in the legislation include harsher consequences for repeat offenders, tougher maximum penalties for transportation related offences and new mandatory minimum penalties for impaired driving and refusal cases that cause bodily harm and death.
This includes doubling the maximum penalty for offences without bodily harm or death on indictment to 10 years imprisonment from five years and for summary convictions (minor criminal offences that are decided without a jury trial or an indictment), raising imprisonment to two years less a day from 18 months.
Also, the maximum penalties for indictable offences causing bodily harm will increase to 14 years imprisonment. The mandatory minimum penalty for summary convictions will be 30 days and for indictments will be 120 days imprisonment. Those charged with impaired driving and refusal offences (when a person has refused to provide a breath or blood sample) causing death will face a new mandatory minimum penalty of six years in prison rather than only a $1,000 fine.
This legislation will also limit the technical defences and tighten disclosure rules related to impaired driving to speed up convictions. This includes no longer allowing the “bolus drinking” defence, which is when drivers claim their BAC is above 80 since the alcohol was being absorbed into their system when they were stopped and while they were driving, it was under that number. There were also be limitations placed on the “intervening drink” defence, which is when the driver claims their high BAC was due to drinking after driving.
In Ontario, the number of impaired driving charges dropped in 2014, but there’s been a rise in drug impaired driving charges. Currently, there’s a report in the works by the Drugs and Driving Committee of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science that will set guidelines as to the amount of drugs that impairs a person’s ability to operate a vehicle, which can be measured during a drug roadside screening device.
Whether this bill passes remains to be seen with Parliament’s final session coming to a close. This bill will not pass before the summer and it may be affected by the upcoming federal election.
Motor vehicle accidents happen and accident benefits are available to anyone involved in a motor vehicle accident regardless of who caused the accident. The personal injury and accident lawyers at Neinstein Personal Injury Lawyers have been dealing with all accident related issues throughout Ontario for over 45 years. We know how to get you the compensation that you deserve and get your life back in order after being in a car accident. Call us at 416-920-4242, set up a free consultation, and come speak with us.
Greg Neinstein
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