I have a friend from Norway, she says if you get caught drinking and driving there (any blood alcohol level) you loose your license for LIFE. Furthermore, if you invite someone over for a drink you are also offering them a place to sleep for the night. Good system. Then if you get caught without a license there should be some stiff penalties not just a fine.

It is getting ridiculous with the drinking and driving. If you can't afford the cab home you can't afford to drink.

Last thing, it is not a policing problem it is a judicial problem. The courts have to toughen up.

Sounds like the cops are picking on the poor lady..........

Impound her car, pull her lisence and ban her from all public drinking establishments and liquor sales outlets. This is fair and at least a start compared to what has happened already. Up until this point, she hasn't learned anything. Chester

Do you really think someone who breaks the law this many times cares about losing a peice of paper....do society a favor...throw them in jail. Their is a cost for this but does it outway the cost of human life?

Travism .... you used that not quite accurate information information once before, it is the second offence where this MAY happen. The first offence MAY have a suspension of one year and MAY care a short jail sentence with it. You MAY also have to pay a fine of up to 10% of your annual salary.

As with most court systems, there are mandatory minumum sentences and there are maximum sentences. The judge considers the evidence, the circumstances, and then provides the sentence accordingly.

There are also countries which have a penalty of execution. How often do you think El Salvador, which has such a law, executes someone for drunk driving?

If she is over .08, it is a criminal offense and can get jail time. If she gets convicted for more than one of these cahrges, she likely will land in jail .....

Of course, that does not solve the general problem. The general problem is much more effectively solved if people like her get treatment. Jail does squat in comaprison.

[url]
http://www.safety-council.org/info/traffic/impaired/BAC.html[/url]

"simplistic generalizations are unrealistic. Countries with BAC limits of 0.05 or lower tend not to use criminal law at the 0.05 level, as Canada would be doing by amending the Criminal Code"

South America and Turkey, I hear have a cure for impaired drivers.
There is no repetitiveness....
Rehabilitation is guaranteed......

The Shoot them!

Owl,

Sorry for my inaccuracy. I was told this by someone who lives there and took her word for it. So that is what the pubic perception of the law is in Norway. Imagine what would happen if that was the public perception here.

As for getting her treatment, your right it probably would be best but, you can't force someone to quit drinking until she is ready to you have to protect the public somehow. We need stiffer laws and do you think she would still be on the road in Norway even with the information you gleaned. And again thank you for your correction.

Destroy the car and no she shouldn't have a license.

As an aside, what if we went to a zero tolerance rule? Forget the "legally intoxicated" threshhold, forget the 24 hour roadside suspensions, etc. Make it simple and easy to administer. If you have ANY alcohol in your system while driving, it is an offence. 30 years ago, it was pretty much acceptable to drive drunk, with no seatbelt and a load of kids in the box of the truck. Things change. I imagne in another decade or so, the attitude of "I only had a couple" will be demonized as well.

Oh, I'm also a fan of stiffer penalties, jail time, tar and feathering or anything else that will deter these idiots from being on the roads.

Take the vehicle.

If I point one of my guns at you, I guarantee I will not have them anymore. I may lose the "piece of paper" (firearms licence), but without taking the guns, it doesn't provide much in the way of safety does it ? That's why they take the licence and the guns.

I could ramble all day about the imperfections and pitfalls of suspensions, prohibitions, etc. but suffice it to say, "Take the vehicle."

"Take the vehicle"

Sure, not a bad idea, but it doesn't do a thing. Losers like this will just rip off another car and be on their way. Just get rid of them all together. I'm so sick of these losers having rights. They lost their rights the second they decided to break the law. Enough said.

travism
You are right, this is a judicial problem not the cops or the courts. The MP's are responsible for proposing new legislation. If the cops and judges are not given the tools (i.e. tougher sentences) to deter these morons from drinking and driving then their hands are tied.

How long have Dick Harris and Jay Hill been in office in their ridings? Do they see this (D+D) to be a problem that is in need of addressing? Have they ever put forward a private members bill? When is the next election?...

With all those charges accumulating against her she is either a) in a constant alcoholic stupor, or b) mentally impaired to repeat over and over, or c) she actually has other problems and desperately tries to get into jail, or d) all of the above.

Jail: Free heated lodging, free food, free medical and dental care, free everything!

Not such a bad deal. And she would definitely by off the icy and slippery roads for a while.

"She is being held in custody awaiting a bail hearing."

As with the previous fellow recently, (also held in custody pending bail hearing) I am interested to know if they will be remanded for trial (held in custody pending trial) or released on conditions.

There is a valid argument for remanding them both to prevent continuation of the offence, however they are still considered non-violent offenders.

"..Twice over the legal limit"? What was the first time? Well it did say twice...

Not only do these people drive poorly but the are usually someone you can't stand! (Was that a pun?)Unfortunately we still have a free society (although some councillors don't like it) and these people are allowed to find their own way to hell. Just have to watch out for them and call the cops every time.

Put an ankle bracelet on her so the radio station in town can keep track of her. She just wants to be famous, then everyone is happy. And we can take comfort that she hasn't gone missing in someones pig farm.

I say we string her up! She needs to be put away before someone is killed.She is a threat to society.

Get her up against the wall.

There's no indication on the initial news story about her having undergone any sort or treatment for her illness in the past. (Unless she has had treatment and has not responded to said treatment) I would like to suggest we try to help her with her problem before condemning her.

No doubt that once all the impaired charges are laid, this gal will spend a few days in the slammer, and probably lose her licence for a year or two.

As for impaired driving in general,I suspect that at any given moment there are hundreds of people driving that would register over .08 however that is part of the problem. Being over .08 does not necessarily make you impaired, some people would be, some wouldnt. When .08 was brought in , it was determined that this would be the best number. Some were advocating for .12 and some for .05, and of course the tea totallers for .00

If point .08 were arbritrarily enforced along with the mandatory 14 days in jail for the second offence our jails would fill up in no time flat. Hence the 24 hour roadside suspension. Most of our upstanding citizens are waved through the road blocks, and on rare occasions given road side suspensions.

We have pubs on every corner, liquor stores everwhere you look, and our illustrous Government in the business of selling booze and gambling. The exact activities that put Al Capone into business. However they are now legal.

There are two types of drivers that kill on a regular basis. Impaired drivers, and stupid drivers. Surprisingly only impaired driving is illegal, even though they kill less people than stupid drivers.

Such is life.

...anyone else get the feeling the "system" is not working??

To be honest, Palopu is pretty much right on the money. Chronic drunks are the ones that usually cause the bad accidents.

Palopu IS right on the money!
And what do we really exoect when we have a Premier in this province who never really accepted any responability for his own impaired driving charge?
And there are also far too many 24 hour suspensions handed out!

I don't believe that alcoholism is a disease, I see it as an addiction. A disease is something you contract, you have no choice. You can choose not to drink. I think she should get the maximun sentence before she kills someone.

"And what do we really exoect when we have a Premier in this province who never really accepted any responability for his own impaired driving charge?"

He apologized to everyone on TV and promised never to drive after drinking again! He accepted complete responsibility and paid his legal dues and I found that totally acceptable.

I know you wanted him to resign tearfully and in complete shame, but he didn't and chose instead to ask for forgiveness and compassion.

His hosts (his friends who invited him to a party there) bear some responsibility too!

If they were real friends they would have done of the right things: offer him a bed for the night, call him a cab or drive him back to the hotel.

To make a connection between the one time mistake of Gordon Campbell and the tens of thousands of drivers who drive plastered every day of the year in spite of all the efforts to get them not to do so is nothing but an (by now worn-out!!!) effort to keep dragging a man's reputation through the mud for political purposes.

It's history now, whether you like it or not.

There IS a connection dilomat!
Take a good look at how little has changed with the impaired driving issue because of laws that are either not applied as they should be,or have no teeth in them!
This falls directly on the Liberal government here in B.C. under Gordon Campbell.
Oh ya..and Casino's as well!
Guess their thing really IS booze and gambling!
Nice legacy.

There IS a connection dilomat!
Take a good look at how little has changed with the impaired driving issue because of laws that are either not applied as they should be,or have no teeth in them!
This falls directly on the Liberal government here in B.C. under Gordon Campbell.
Oh ya..and Casino's as well!
Guess their thing really IS booze and gambling!
Nice legacy, and Campbell should be reminded of it everyday!

No it doesn't! The laws were ALWAYS too lenient and not applied to their fullest extend - the event of Mr. Campbell's Maui impaired driving has had no bearing whatsoever on what the police and courts are doing in B.C.

It's the RCMP that issues 24 hour suspensions, not Gordon Campbell!

The casinos and slot machines were brought to British Columbia over the objections of some cities (PG was one of them!) by the then NDP (New Democratic Party) government, unloaded at 3 a.m. under the cover of darkness on George Street!

The *legacy* wasn't established by the present government but it goes way back to the 1990s!

Why don't you connect Mike Harcourt and Glenn Clarke (and the other two) to the casino and impaired driving *legacy* the same way you do (ad infinitum) with the present government?

What did the previous Premiers do about it?

Over and out.

In Canada, the MINIMUM punishments for impaired driving or driving over 0.08% are:

For the first offence: $600 fine, 1-year driving prohibition; or jail time

For the second offence: 14 days jail, 2-year driving prohibition

For the third or subsequent offence: 90 days jail, 3-year driving prohibition.

Provinces typically use the 0.05% as cutoff to do other things, such as road side suspension in BC.

Thus this really becomes an RCMP and provincial matter more than a Court matter. If the police officer at the scene does not feel that a test is required and does not watn ot put a person through to a federal charge, then they get off with a bit of a warning.

So, who is to blame?

I disagree, the problem is not the RCMP. Here is why. If you get a DD charge, you will fight it, guarranteed. Because of this, every single loop hole has been found and throughly exploited. If there is one small error in the arrest, you get off. As for the suspensions, it is because the average DD charge requires about 45 pages of paper work plus court appearances. It is too much work for a charge that probably won't stick anyways. (Owl, my source is personal conversations with numerous RCMP Constables who do the paper work everyday, I have never had a DD charge and not involved in that system so I don't have an actual copy of the paper work)

My solution to the DD problem is as follows:
1) Close the loop holes. The paper work should be simple; name, date etc. Then three yes no check boxes A) were they driving B) did they blow over the legal limit C) if yes to B was their blood alcohol level over the legal limit.
2) If yes was checked in all three boxes. You were driving while impaired, you are charged and convicted. No need for a lenghty trial.
3) The legal limit should be 0.00. If you have a drink take a cab. If you can't afford the cab don't drink.

As for what I think the minimum punishment should be, lets have a round table discussion with the families of people who were killed by drunk drivers. I will go with whatever they reccomend for the punishment.

Travism. If only life were so simple. Seems people get confused between having a blood alcohol reading of .08 and impairment.

A large number of people who had a reading of say .09 would not be impaired, and their motor skills would be perfectly in order, and you are suggesting that we convict them and send them to jail. So I guess the crime would be exceeding the .08 reading rather than impaired driving.

The focus should be to get the worst drivers off the road, impaired or otherwise. We have thousands of drivers who, while not driving impaired, should be pulled off the road for speeding, driving without due care and attention, dangerous driving etc;

Now if we were to apply your no tolerance mentality, to speeding, dangerous driving, etc; every driver in Prince George would have to walk to work, because they all break one or more driving law every day. This includes the police who are constantly making rolling stops, speeding etc;

Touche Palopu,

However, every driving rule is arbitrary. The speed limit for my Ford Pickup is the same as it is for a high performance sports car. The limit is the limit no matter what you (not you specifically) think your limit is. How many people have been killed because they thought that due to their tolerance for alcohol their motor skills were still sufficent to drive? How many unsafe drivers are there out there who think that they are under the legal limit and still sober enough to drive? Make it easy, if you have any alcohol in your system you are unable to drive.

I do agree with you though, breaking the law while driving has become sadly socially acceptable and most people think they are far better than average drivers.

The cost of convicting and incarcerating drunk drivers is prohibitive. If all impaired drivers were charged and they pleaded not guilty the courts roster would fill up immediately, most of our Police would be sitting in courtrooms waiting to testify, and our jails would be full, so the Government in its wisdom has implemented the out of sight out of mind philosophy.

Joe Citizen comes to court charged with impaired driving. He pleads guilty. Prosecutor doesnt inform the judge that Joe had a previous conviction, Judge assess's $500.00 fine and **Bobs your Uncle** Government up $500.00 arresting officer out catching more impaireds, huge dollars saved by not sending this cowboy to jail. This process worked well until MADD raised hell and basically forced the prosecutors to bring forward all previous convictions. The result was that the jails filled up, some people who had jobs went to jail on the week-ends until they served their 14 days, others (mostly women) were ankle bracleted and kept a home to serve their time. Probably drinking, watching TV and having a good time, and having the kid drive them whereever they wanted to go.

It now seems the roadside suspenion is the tool used to keep these people out of prison and reduce Government costs. (Otherwise why would we do it) The problem with roadside suspensions is that it gives the Police discresionary powers, which over time creates favourtism, and ultimately causes all sort of problems.

Has anyone noticed that even though our police forces drink about the same as the average Citizens that there are few if any impaired charges laid, are they part of the roadside suspension crew? It would be interesting to see the list of names of those people who have had roadside suspensions. I bet that would snap your head back.