Roadside Drivers Survey Highlights New Concerns

Friday, December 10, 2010 05:56 AM

Prince George, B.C. - A recent roadside survey of nighttime drivers in B.C. to measure their alcohol and drug use turned up some alarming results.

The survey was conducted by the Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse in Vancouver, Saanich, Abbotsford, Prince George and Kelowna -- a previous survey done in 2008, did not include the interior cities. (click here for the 2008 summary) The drivers were pulled over at random locations during a four night period, from Wednesday to Saturday.

The Senior Research and Policy Analyst with the Centre was in Prince George to present a 'soft release' to area stakeholders -- the RCMP, ICBC, the B.C. Coroner's Service, the Brain Injured Group, and Northern Health's RoadHealth Coalition. The full report is due out in January.

Executive Director of the Central Interior Logging Association and RoadHealth Coalition Coordinator, Maryanne Arcand says, "I think we were all expecting Prince George to be the worst, which is kind of sad, but we weren't in a number of significant categories." For example, Arcand says there were a higher number of people blowing over the legal limit in other centres on Saturday night. However, she says the city was "way higher" than everybody else on Wednesday and Thursday evening.

Arcand says, "One of the alarming things that jumped out at me was the percentage of people blowing way, way over the legal limit -- we had the highest and we had the highest (blood alcohol) numbers." She says, "Some were so high you wondered how the person hadn't fallen over dead."

But she says the scariest result for her and others in the room was the insight it provided into driving under the influence of drugs. She says the survey clearly shows that drivers' attitudes towards drugs and driving, particularly marijuana, are far from reality, as they think it doesn't impair. "And that use is almost as prevalent as alcohol and, in some cases, more prevalent with very little targeted prevention around it."

"The other thing that really concerned me was that 10-percent of people admitted they were high or drunk coming from work," Arcand says. "So there are some serious things in there that make you stop and think we've got to change how we approach the prevention and peoples' awareness levels on some of these things, particularly marijuana and driving."

While disturbing, Arcand says the results have given the regulators and enforcers who were in the room a good snapshot of areas to target to try and make a difference. She says one idea in Prince George, could be to have counterattack campaigns on Wednesday evenings and after sporting events, rather than the usual Saturday night.

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Posted on Friday, December 10, 2010 05:56 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: taxinapothole on December 10 2010 6:58 AM

So, what about day time drivers? There are many people that have drank through most of the night, get a few hours sleep and get in their vehicle and head out for work!!

My father use to say, "figures lye, and liars figure"

Posted by: taxinapothole on December 10 2010 7:05 AM

sorry, typo, *lie, another coffee, I'll be OK.

I will fill up today for 94.6 cents a litre, and..........I will not pay HST on anything. I won't even pay PST on anything.

The Rocky Mountains and all their "Glory" are only 60 miles away!! (100 klm)

Have a great weekend everybody

Posted by: opine on December 10 2010 8:37 AM

So here's a logical question - perhaps a beginning of a new survey. Of the 10% of people either high or drunk coming "from work" what percentage of these people are high and drunk "AT WORK"?

Posted by: Jim13135 on December 10 2010 10:09 AM

And this horrible information is gleaned from a survey?? Really??

""tell me sir, your heading home from work...have you been drinking and/or snorting coke??""

You'd have to be daft to believe your survey results are going to have any bearing on facts.......may as well ask if they just finished molesting our kids.

Posted by: Dragonmaster on December 10 2010 11:31 AM

They should conduct a survey asking... If you are one of the many drivers permitted a licence in this province that simply do not pay attention while driving, do you think you should be made to turn in that licence until you grab a brain?

Posted by: getagripreally on December 10 2010 11:34 AM

Jim13135 interesting comment from someone who really knows nothing ... Doesn't anyone know how a survey is conducted, reading your comment one would have to guess education beyond grade school was out of the question for individuals such as Jim13135 .. Sorry for that ...

Posted by: dudeinpg on December 10 2010 11:41 AM

Jim13135,

I was pulled into one of these operations in Vancouver. They were conducted by non-law enforcement people. I was told that participation in the survey is voluntary and anonymous and could have simply carried on if I wished. (yes I know they can take plate #'s) The survey questions were presented on a form which was folded to keep the answers private until the data was processed for the results. And of course they have the breathalyzer there too. I think most who agreed to participate would have been fairly confident that it was just a survey to collect stats and raise awareness and nothing more. The results may not be 100% accurate, but from my experience I think they should give a good overall picture of what happening out there.

Posted by: getagripreally on December 10 2010 12:49 PM

Now that is an intelligent comment - dudeinpg - a person who comments with the use of the horse's head, not the .. you all know

Posted by: gus on December 10 2010 1:31 PM

If such a survey is allowed, especially with using a breathalizer, then why not go for the gusto? Do an exit survey at the pubs and restaurants that have relative high liquor sales.

Why pussyfoot around?

Posted by: Loki on December 10 2010 4:11 PM

No one seems concerned with the mass infringement of privacy and rights in stopping random drivers by people that are not police. Even if it is Police, it is still cause for concern.

G20 style war measures for intoxicated drivers. Wow, fricken wow.

Posted by: gus on December 10 2010 5:11 PM

I am very concerned. My post above yours, Loki, was tongue in cheek.

I mean stop traffic on the bridge coming in from the BCR industrial site and other locations of higher rush hour traffic going to and from work. Try the larger parking lot exits.

Take high traffic areas at high traffic times .... piss a few people off ..... do some vehicle profiling ... which ones have typically been driven by people who have had a DUI charge?

Surveyed on the internet, surveyed on the phone, survey at retail stores, airports, etc. Door to door surveys seem to have died down. Now we have surveys that inhibit free passage on a road.

And, in case no one has looked at the questionaire, they take a saliva sample for drugs ... which means dna ......

And, of course, this is all by free will .... except that refusal is most often taken for guilt rather than expression of privacy rights ....

Car plates are there. That will identify the likely driver, but not necessarily the actual driver.

Makes the trial that Skakun is undergoing right now and the right to privacy in the workplace look like issues of minor importance in my mind .....

Something seems to be going wrong and it seems impossible to stop since too many people really do not give a chit.

Posted by: gus on December 10 2010 5:14 PM

Makes me laugh (NOT!!!!)that this is happening under the same BCLiberal government that got rid of vans with cameras in them to photograph speeders.

The irony of it.

Posted by: gus on December 10 2010 5:24 PM

opine: "what percentage of these people are high and drunk "AT WORK"?"

Well with the boring work some people do, probably a high percentage.

The smart ones may actually car pool, get picked up by spouses, or take public transit, especially in the large cities, so the two numbers may not necessarily relate at all.

In places like the GVRD, a relatively high proportion of people do take public transit. I think those people should be surveyed as well to get a better picture of the situation. Theoretically those who are under the influence should be as high and possibly slightly higher for those not driving a vehicle.

Posted by: gus on December 10 2010 5:26 PM

In other words, at any given time, 10+ % of the general population is high on alcohol or other drugs.

So where is the Wow!! factor in that?

Posted by: Palopu on December 10 2010 9:54 PM

Gus. It has been more or less established that 10% of people in any given profession have a problem with drugs or alcohol. So we can assume that at any given moment we will have Police, Politicians, Doctors, Nurses, Airline Pilots, Teachers, Military Personel, etc; etc; etc; who are impaired to some degree on a daily basis.

There is nothing new in having a high percentage of impaired drivers. This was a very serious problem in the 40's 50's 60's 70's etc; The mystery is why people keep harping on the issue like it was something new.

Its much like the WAR on drugs. What a bunch of BS. Do people actually beleive that after fighting the war on drugs since the 1940's we are still losing the battle. The reason we are losing the battle is because we dont try very hard to win. We do not use the laws on the books, however we keep on passing new laws, that generate revenue but do not solve the problems.

Anyone with half a brain and a butt can go around town and find many, many, people who drink and drive on a regular basis. This includes all members of society.

If you were to arrest everyone and incarcerate them for impaired driving your jails would be full, and a high number of socially acceptable people in this town would be doing time.

So lets get real. The Government sells alcohol to distributors, who sell it to the public, and then the Government hires police to arrest the people who consume the alcohol they sell to them. The Government licences the bars that sell the liquor, and then holds the owner of the bar responsible if he sells the patron to much of the Governments Whisky.

Al Capone had a great distribution system for illegal alcohol during prohibition, and he also controlled a lot of the speak easys, along with the gambling etc;

To-day this once offensive, and illegal business is run by our Government. What a bloody shame. We have a Government that is not much better than organized criminals, in the sense that they both make money out of the same business.

As long as you have people buying the alcohol and drugs, you are going to have a problem. We the people are the problem, because we buy the product, and keep these nefarious Governments in business.

Quit smoking, gambling, and drinking, and you WILL make a difference.

Posted by: supertech on December 10 2010 10:40 PM

Palopu: You are correct. The government wants you to do those things. Just immagine the finances of these governments without the tax on those three vices. They would be forced to increase other taxes enourmously to replace that income? The alcohol is an added bonus because they can charge you with impaired and take even more of your salary. If we didn't have tax from those item, gas prices would be 10 bucks a litre.