'Most drivers' stopped by police will likely be tested for drunk driving: RCMP

[Bouncing Bettys]

Edited - I don't want to give any ideas to someone who may still lurk this site.

[inv4zn]

I will stick to my guns and say breathalyzer samples on the road are a good thing.

But, police showing up at bars and houses to ask for samples is not - it's very shaky legally, and most people agree is way too far, myself included.

I get why they came up with it - it's unwritten common knowledge that if you hit something/somebody while drunk, you book it home and drink something. Then the police show up, you tell them you only started drinking after you got home. They can't prove you were drunk when you hit something/somebody. Fleeing the scene >>> DUI.

But still, even for someone who very rarely drinks anything at all, this part of the new law is bullshit.

[white rocket]

So brutal: https://globalnews.ca/news/4832762/i...kXmBjvETXNGs5o

It sucks that anyone can phone in a "referral" and complain even if it isn't true. It sounds like just being impaired can get you in trouble now depending on how an officer wants to treat it.

[DGN23]

I live within walking distance to three bars. I could walk to one, get drunk, walk home and because someone wants to screw me over they call the cops and now I have to prove I'm innocent and wasn't operating a vehicle while intoxicated. This sets a very dangerous precedent.

It's easy for police to say "we're not going to" but the problem is that they can, and nothing can stop them.

[dared3vil0]

The two hour after thing is fucking retarded.

[JSALES]

Another related article returning beer bottles, wtf

https://globalnews.ca/news/4828694/i...ource=GlobalBC

[DoughBoy]

Fuck the police

[HansonBoy]

Lorne Gunter: Drunk driving is a scourge, but so is government overreach

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/col...d-6bef0a8f9921

[mikemhg]

Told you this would be a cash grab. Anytime the police say "well we'd never ACTUALLY use these new rules", that is complete bullshit. If they weren't, why have the laws changed to allow such prosecution?

Of course they will use this ability to their leverage. I don't understand why we Canadians put up with this draconian garbage. Extremely frustrating.

[RRxtar]

Originally Posted by mikemhg

Told you this would be a cash grab. Anytime the police say "well we'd never ACTUALLY use these new rules", that is complete bullshit. If they weren't, why have the laws changed to allow such prosecution?

Of course they will use this ability to their leverage. I don't understand why we Canadians put up with this draconian garbage. Extremely frustrating.

how come in one thread you're on team left/liberal and in this thread youre on team too much government overreach?

they're different sides of the fence

[twitchyzero]

Originally Posted by mikemhg

Told you this would be a cash grab. Anytime the police say "well we'd never ACTUALLY use these new rules", that is complete bullshit. If they weren't, why have the laws changed to allow such prosecution?

yes they're gonna start busting down every door within a 10km radius everytime there's a sporting event/show downtown solely to up revenue
no fun city!!!

last i checked, RCMP is facing serious manpower deficiencies nationwide...while more money never hurts, i doubt it's the priority for calling on more draconian laws

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by RRxtar

how come in one thread you're on team left/liberal and in this thread youre on team too much government overreach?

they're different sides of the fence

I think you are confused.

[Nlkko]

Cain gonna be showing up and get you to piss in a tube.

[melloman]

There is a fine line in the sand, and I will wait to hear what the outcome is when these new laws get challenged in court.

Personally, as I don't really drink much, I don't have a big problem with the whole mandatory roadside breathe test. Do I think there is a huge chance of over-reach by officers? Yes. But at the same time it will be a strong deterrent to people breaking the law.

My problem comes in at the "2-hour" bullshit rule. A police officer could follow you home, and you could be 100% sober. He could wait outside your house for an hour, then come knock on your door and demand a breathe sample. I could've gotten home, and cracked open a beer and sat down on the couch. Now I need to PROVE MY INNOCENCE that I did not drink and drive? Are you kidding?

Personally, to avoid this dumb rule.. I'm just not opening the door.
If the officer ever asks what I was doing and why I didn't open the door.. I'll just say I was taking a bath.

[mikemhg]

Originally Posted by RRxtar

how come in one thread you're on team left/liberal and in this thread youre on team too much government overreach?

they're different sides of the fence

Ooooh you got me! Maybe because as I've said numerous times on this forum, I never subscribe to being left, progressive, or liberal. If you knew me personally, you would know that.

That's the problem with people like you, you think everything is a team stance, and that since I appear to be liberal, I should buy into all liberal ideas? That's frankly ignorant. I carry views and values from all sides, maybe you should too.

[mikemhg]

Originally Posted by twitchyzero

yes they're gonna start busting down every door within a 10km radius everytime there's a sporting event/show downtown solely to up revenue
no fun city!!!

last i checked, RCMP is facing serious manpower deficiencies nationwide...while more money never hurts, i doubt it's the priority for calling on more draconian laws

That's also an ignorant comment. Don't think I've said once that the RCMP are going to be breaking down people's doors at sporting events.

I won't detail my previous association with the RCMP/Law Enforcement, but there is one point you should know.

The majority of the RCMP's jurisdictions are rural. I'm not sure if you've ever driven through a rural area before, but let's just say the police practices in these areas are quite "different" than that in the city. You may find yourself getting pulled over and paying a ticket in Merritt that you may not necessarily in Burnaby, for example.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ticle38085153/

The RCMP is cash strapped, especially in smaller communities. If you don't think they will take advantage of new authority and abilities to drive up department revenue, especially in smaller communities, then you have another thing coming.

[Berzerker]

Blood Alcohol levels are measurable both going up and down. IF you blew over when the police arrived, you would then likely be arrested and taken to the station where they would likely perform several more samples over time. This would show when and how much you drank. For me to blow over I would have to get home and crush 6 beers in under an hour to blow over. I would then get HIGHER readings once tested again 30, 60 mins after being arrested as my body was still absorbing the alcohol.
It would be almost impossible for me to start drinking when I got home, and the cops arriving in under an hour for me to blow over. Especially if they got there in 30mins or less.

This "law" is needed to catch people that do wrong and quickly drive home in hopes of escaping punishment.

https://www.moderation.org/bac/bac-men.html#1hour

Those are the tables for drinks consumed over time and body weight factored in.

I think this is paranoia from the masses on what is simply helping the police to catch the people that need being caught.

Berz out.

[twitchyzero]

Originally Posted by mikemhg

You may find yourself getting pulled over and paying a ticket in Merritt that you may not necessarily in Burnaby, for example.

post an example of said ticket, verifiable by the general public (like a news article)

if there's a worrying pattern, the media's probably covered it at some point

otherwise it's all anecdotes/hysteria

[CCA-Dave]

Originally Posted by Berzerker

Blood Alcohol levels are measurable both going up and down. IF you blew over when the police arrived, you would then likely be arrested and taken to the station where they would likely perform several more samples over time. This would show when and how much you drank. For me to blow over I would have to get home and crush 6 beers in under an hour to blow over. I would then get HIGHER readings once tested again 30, 60 mins after being arrested as my body was still absorbing the alcohol.
It would be almost impossible for me to start drinking when I got home, and the cops arriving in under an hour for me to blow over. Especially if they got there in 30mins or less.

This "law" is needed to catch people that do wrong and quickly drive home in hopes of escaping punishment.

https://www.moderation.org/bac/bac-men.html#1hour

Those are the tables for drinks consumed over time and body weight factored in.

I think this is paranoia from the masses on what is simply helping the police to catch the people that need being caught.

Berz out.

That's blood alcohol content, not road-side-tester content. Maybe I'm too old, but back when I was in high school cops used to visit and demonstrate the breathalyzer as part of the program. They'd always test a student, have them rinse their mouth with mouthwash, and test again. Always failed on second attempt. Sorry, but I often drive home from a Lordco parts run (completely sobert), head into my shop and crack open a bottle of bourbon. By the time I my neighbour has called in a complaint for my diesel truck, and suggested I've been drinking, I'll be enough sips of bourbon in at the lathe to fail the 'roadside' test when the cops arrive. The law is incredibly over reaching, and I hope, unconstitutional. The law was *well intentioned* but in today's society, with officers like captain-Box1, we can't have laws that will be applied with "discretion". This one needs to be knocked down.

[Bouncing Bettys]

From Reddit - A student sharing his Law professor's opinion:

I am going to try to offer some clarity about the changes to Canada's impaired driving laws that took effect December 18, 2018, because I am seeing a great deal of confusion about them across Facebook, including among people who should know better. While virtually every aspect of Canada's impaired driving laws changed on that day, I am going to focus on the two changes that are attracting the most attention: the changes to the authority to demand a breath sample into an approved screening device (ASD), and the changes to the elements of the offence commonly referred to as "over-eighty".

I note at the outset that I am against both sets of changes, that I believe that some aspects of the changes are clearly unconstitutional and others arguably so, and that I fully expect to be engaged in challenging them in court. Though, as I will explain below, some of the criticisms offered of the new laws are based on misinformation, there is plenty of bad stuff in those laws even without that misinformation. That fact is all the more reason to support accurate and honest discussion about them.

First, the authority to demand an ASD sample. Prior to December 18, the only basis for a police officer to demand an ASD sample was if they reasonably suspected that i. you had alcohol in your body, and ii. you had operated (or been in care or control of) a motor vehicle within the past three hours. You will note that this already meant that they could demand a sample from you at home or at a bar, as long as they had reasonable grounds to suspect those two things. That seizure authority is in no way new, and remains in place under the new laws.

The seizure authority that is new is that police officers can now demand an ASD sample from you without any reasonable suspicion, provided that, at the time of the demand, i. you are operating (or in care or control of) a motor vehicle, and ii. the officer has an ASD in their possession. This is a significant (and, to many of us, objectionable) new police power, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with demanding breath samples from people at home or at bars, because, for it to be triggered, you must be operating (or in care or control of) a motor vehicle, and not merely have done so in the recent past.

Second, the elements of the over-eighty offence: before December 18, it was an offence to operate (or be in care or control of) a motor vehicle while the concentration of alcohol in your blood exceeded eighty milligrams of alcohol in one hundred millilitres of blood (commonly referred to in shorthand as "eighty milligrams percent", or "80mg%"). Now, it is an offence to be at or over 80mg% (a slight change) at any time within two hours after operating (or being in care or control of) a motor vehicle (a major change). This is where the concern about being investigated at home or in a bar comes from: if you drive home stone cold sober and then drink to the point that, less than two hours later, you are over 80mg%, you are committing an offence. The change in the law isn't that police can demand breath samples from you in those circumstances - again, they could always do that - but that those breath samples would now afford evidence of an offence, where before they would not.

There is, it must be said, an additional defence to this new charge: even if you're over 80mg% within two hours after driving, you're not guilty of an offence if you can show three things. The first two of those things are pretty straightforward, and not difficult to prove: you must establish that you consumed alcohol after driving, and you must establish that you did so without any expectation that you would be required to provide a breath sample. The third requirement is where the difficulty arises: you must show that the quantity of alcohol that you claim to have consumed matches up with your breath readings.

The consequences of these requirements are clear: if you can convince a court that you drove home (or to a bar) sober and then drank, never expecting to be subjected to a breath demand, and that after getting home you consumed a quantity of alcohol that you were not carefully tracking, you would still be guilty, because, without knowing how much alcohol you consumed, you are unable to show that that consumption matched up with your breath readings. This is the aspect that is, in my mind, most clearly unconstitutional.

One last point: defenders of the new laws will roll their eyes at the suggestion that police are going to start charging people for being drunk at bars to which they drove while sober. I suspect that those defenders are essentially correct on this point - I don't think police will lay charges except where they believe that the person actually drove over the legal limit. I have two responses to this, however: first, police can be wrong in their beliefs, and the sincerity of the police belief is cold comfort to a morally innocent person left without a defence under these new laws. Second, and more importantly, the notion that we should criminalize a vast array of morally innocent conduct and just rely on police to selectively apply those laws only against the morally guilty is antithetical to a society based on the rule of law, as ours remains for the time being.

Edit: The original version of this post indicated that, in most circumstances, the accused would have to establish on balance of probabilities the defence to the new version of the over-eighty charge. As warrior-for-freedom-turned-jackbooted-agent-of-the-state (Crown Attorney friend of the author) pointed out in the comments, I had neglected to take into account some other recent legislative amendments in saying that. The current situation, as a result of those amendments, is complicated, unclear, and beyond the scope of this post, so I've simply deleted the offending language. The current wording of the post accurately reflects the law.

—————————-

He added this:

Oh, and for anybody who may be tempted to make a partisan issue about this, note the following: 1. The new laws passed with support from Green, Bloc Quebecois, and many (though not all) NDP MPs, and 2. While the Conservatives voted against the law at the end of the day, the changes are virtually identical to changes introduced by the Harper government, which ultimately died on the order paper - these new laws were originally a Conservative innovation.

[Bouncing Bettys]

Someone has won their court case against this law. Although it is a little alarming/predictable how the police gained entry to her house in the first place.

What is also mentioned is that with the new laws allowing for cops to demand a breath sample without any indications of impairment, people unable to give samples due to health issues are being handed IRP's and facing stiff penalties.

Nanaimo woman wins court challenge over forced breathalyzer test hours after driving
A Nanaimo woman says her rights have been violated because of new federal drunk driving provisions.

Lee Lowrie says she was recently at her sister’s home in Maple Ridge when she received a call from the RCMP stating they had a very personal issue they needed to speak to her directly about. She assumed it was a family emergency and invited them into the home.

“They said there was a personal issue they needed to speak to me about. I immediately thought something had happened to a family member,” Lowrie said.

Lowrie and her boyfriend had traveled to Maple Ridge en route to pick up his children in Williams Lake. On the way to her sister’s house, the group stopped at the local pub for lunch. They each had one cocktail with the meal and headed home.

When they arrived home they sat by the pool and had a few beers, without any plans to leave the house that day. The police arrived at the home about two hours after they got home.

Under the federal government’s roadside provision, police are legally allowed to request a breathalyzer without any signs of impairment. The test can be requested within two hours of a driver being on the road, even after someone has returned home and had alcohol to drink.

Lowrie failed the breathalyzer test even after explaining to the RCMP that she had been drinking for a couple hours.

“The RCMP were not willing to let me prove the amount of alcohol I had consumed [at] home. I even invited them in to see the empties,” Lowrie said.

“It was like living in a communist country with no rights. Truly I felt violated.”

Lowrie was issued a 90-day licence suspension and 30-day vehicle impoundment. She was also required to take a driving course. On top of that she had to figure out how to get home to Nanaimo and her boyfriend’s kids were stuck in Williams Lake.

Lowrie eventually won her case in court. But she will never get back the expenses she had to pay, nor the legal fees. In total, Lowrie says the ordeal cost her about $3,500 in total with lawyer expenses, travel, taxis, vacation hours.

“This was devastating to my livelihood,” Lowrie said.

“I have never had a traffic violation in 25 years, it was horrible.”

Global News has reported extensively on the issues with the federal government’s new rules.

Norma McLeod has taken her fight against Canada’s “unfair” roadside impaired driving test to court. The 76-year-old Victoria woman is working with a team of lawyers to launch a constitutional challenge against a law that allows police to demand a breathalyzer without any signs a driver is impaired.

“I just feel the police have no sympathy for us who have a hard time breathing,” McLeod said.

“I have gotten a lot more confident than I was before. Others have come forward with their problems as well.”

McLeod is part of a growing number of British Columbians who have come forward with concerns over the roadside breathalyzer rules.

In October 2017, Patty Dowler dropped off some empty cans at the local beer and wine store before picking up some beer. On her way home she was pulled over.

The officer told her she smelled alcohol on her breath, but Dowler is adamant she was not drinking and the smell came from the cans that had been in the hot vehicle. She was then asked to do a breathalyzer.

“I just didn’t seem to be able to blow enough to make a reading on her instrument. I ended up doing five or six tries and still couldn’t do. I was feeling very stressed and ill and the officer told me she was going to impound my car and take my licence,” Dowler told Global News.

“I realized it was my Bell’s palsy. I am not able to form that seal to do the sobriety test.”

Bell’s palsy is a a medical condition where face muscles are weakened.

In McLeod’s case she was pulled over after leaving a liquor store near her home. She showed no signs of impairment and was pulled over and ordered to conduct a breathalyzer test.

After blowing nine times, she was unable to make the machine register and had her car impounded, her licence revoked and even after a doctor produced a note saying she couldn’t physically breath hard enough to pass the test, she failed an appeal.

McLeod survived mouth cancer, wears a mouth implement and has COPD, a respiratory illness.

Lawyers Jerry Steele and Jennifer Teryn from the law firm Jeremy Carr & Associates have now taken on McLeod’s case.

Steele says in this latest case, Lowrie had her rights infringed upon.

“The police are abusing new rights and authorities under the Criminal Code,” Steele said.

“They can only initiate a mandatory demand if someone is driving a vehicle.

The B.C. government is currently in the midst of reviewing the impacts on roadside breathalyzers. Solicitor General Mike Farnworth has reached out to his federal counterparts to express the concern that has been brought to his attention by British Columbians.

“Seeing the numbers of complaints we are starting to see, we have written to the federal minister to explain this is an issue,” Farnworth said.

MADD really has become a neo-prohibitionist group with too much power.

[prudz]

So every time I go to the liquor store, drive home, sit on my patio to bbq and get drunk I can get a dui. Niceeeee, which individuals can we thank for putting this into law?

edit* Did some digging, we have Jody Wilson Raybould to thank for this one. She introduced the law.

[DavidNguyen]

Crap man. Lately my eyes have been RED AF.

I dont even drink a drop of alcohol or i dont even blaze!

Damn allergies. Im gonna get hassled for sure

[forcedot]

People should be pro police powers, but anti-abuse of those powers.

Most police officers do the right thing and extending them that option to further investigate a suspicion is only beneficial to the public. Majority of officers don't just randomly breathalyze everyone they pull over, there is usually a reason why a police officer is asking you for a breath sample.

[Jmac]

Originally Posted by forcedot

People should be pro police powers, but anti-abuse of those powers.

Most police officers do the right thing and extending them that option to further investigate a suspicion is only beneficial to the public. Majority of officers don't just randomly breathalyze everyone they pull over, there is usually a reason why a police officer is asking you for a breath sample.

It’s actually not beneficial at all to give police the power to take away a person’s livelihood based on circumstantial evidence with no checks and balances.

This law is completely unnecessary. Impaired driving rates were already at historical lows when it was introduced, young drivers had the steepest declines in impaired driving rates (meaning overall impaired driving rates will decline at a steeper rate as young drivers replace older drivers), passive vehicle safety continues to improve, and active vehicle safety technology is becoming the norm.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/.../14679-eng.htm