With so many holiday parties in December, is impaired driving worse now than the rest of the year? – Erin, Ottawa
December drinking and driving is slightly lower than the rest of the year, experts said.
“We actually see more drinking and driving in the summer months, but drinking and driving is really a year-round problem,” said Robyn Robertson, chief executive officer of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF), an Ottawa-based non-profit. “It never goes away.”
From 2017 to 2021, the most recent years with data, 23.5 per cent of drivers killed in crashes during the holiday season had alcohol in their blood – compared to about 30.5 per cent for the rest of the year, according to TIRF data.
“So around the Christmas period, if you want to estimate it, it’s about one in five fatalities – whereas in the rest of the year, it’s about one in three,” Robertson said.
That’s likely because of active enforcement blitzes, including roadside checkpoints such as Ontario’s RIDE (Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere) program, and education campaigns that “message very intensely around drinking and driving” in the month of December, Robertson said.
December used to be a lot worse for impaired driving. In 2004, for example, 38 per cent of drivers killed in crashes during the holiday season had alcohol in their blood – much higher than the rest of the year.
“I think awareness around the risks [of impaired driving] has grown over the last couple of decades – but there is such a focus during this time of the year,” said Steve Sullivan, chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Canada. “Even just looking at workplace parties, I think businesses are more conscious of their social responsibility. So if they are having a party where they’re serving alcohol to their staff, they’re providing taxis and ride-sharing services.”
Also, safe-ride programs, including Operation Red Nose, where volunteers give people free rides home, usually only run this time of the year.
Year-round blitzes?
While police do have education and enforcement blitzes around holiday weekends in the summer, could the strategies that work for December work the rest of the year?
“It’s a resourcing issue. [Police] are tasked with so many road safety priorities in addition to the criminal work that they do,” Robertson said. “That’s why you see these road safety [campaign] calendars, where one month it’s distraction, and the next it’s speed or it’s impairment, to try and cover all of those risky drivers on the road.”
Since 2018, the law has allowed police to test drivers for alcohol during any traffic stop – for example, after pulling a driver over for speeding or running a red light – without needing reasonable suspicion (such as the smell of alcohol) that the driver is impaired.
While that could reduce drinking and driving year round, it’s too soon to tell whether it will lead to fewer deaths and injuries on the road, Robertson said.
“It hasn’t been actively enforced. Police have a lot of priorities,” she said. “[Now] police services across the country are really working to make drivers aware that mandatory alcohol screening exists – and that they will be doing it.”
Safer but not safe enough?
In 2021, the most recent year with data, 459 people were killed in crashes on Canadian roads involving a drinking driver.
While that’s a 58 per cent decrease from 1,079 fatalities 25 years ago in 1996, the numbers have largely hovered in the high 400s and low 500s for the past decade, Robertson said.
In annual surveys on drinking and driving, the proportion of people who say they have driven after drinking when they felt they were impaired has declined to just under 6 per cent from 10.5 per cent in 2022, Robertson said.
“During the pandemic, we definitely saw increases, but for the last two years, we’ve seen decreases,” she said. “Six per cent may seem small, but keep in mind that it’s 6 per cent of around 26 million drivers – it’s still a concerning number and shows we have more to do.”
If you drink, don’t drive
If you are going to be drinking, plan not to drive, MADD’s Sullivan said. That’s also true of consuming cannabis or any other drug.
“Our advice to people is to just separate the acts of consumption and driving,” Sullivan said, adding that because we are all different, it isn’t worth it to try to calculate your blood-alcohol level while sitting in the pub.
The Criminal Code of Canada defines alcohol-impaired driving as having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above .08 per cent, which is 80 milligrams of alcohol for every 100 millilitres of blood.
But every province and territory except Quebec and Yukon has administrative laws that allow police to suspend your licence on the spot if your BAC is more than .05 per cent (.04 in Saskatchewan).
Most provinces with graduated licensing systems require new drivers – and drivers under 22 in Ontario and Quebec and under 21 in New Brunswick – to have a 0 per cent BAC while driving.
While there are online charts and apps that can roughly estimate how high your BAC might be after a certain number of standard drinks, they’re not accurate for everyone – and the drinks you’re consuming may vary in size and alcohol content.
“I would say if you’re at a dinner and you have one beer or one glass of wine and you’re there for two or three hours, you are not going to have to worry,” Sullivan said. “But ideally, I think if you are going to be out consuming, just make a plan. Maybe one of you doesn’t consume, maybe you take ride-sharing.”
It’s even harder to predict how long your driving will be impaired by consuming cannabis, Sullivan said.
“When you smoke cannabis, you feel it really quickly, but then that drops off quite quickly,” Sullivan said. “But it might still be in your system and still impairing you.”
Plus, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the molecule in cannabis that causes intoxication, affects individuals differently.
“It can depend on if you’re a newer user … or if you are someone who uses it every day. It can be different if you smoke versus if you have an edible or if you’re vaping.”
You could face impaired driving charges if you’re tested by police and shown to have more than two nanograms of THC in your blood.
Generally, experts say you shouldn’t drive for at least six hours after consuming any amount of cannabis – but it varies so much that the best advice is to just avoid driving entirely, Sullivan said.
“With alcohol, and it’s probably the same with cannabis too, you don’t always realize how impaired you are,” Sullivan said.
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