As the vacation season ends, regional and provincial police are releasing the overall variety of drivers checked and tickets handed out throughout festive RIDE (Decreasing Impaired Driving In all places) campaigns.
Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) launched the numbers for its Festive RIDE marketing campaign that occurred between Nov. 15, 2024 and Jan. 1, 2025.
In a launch despatched out on Friday, WRPS mentioned officers stopped 8,157 autos throughout the area and carried out 76 roadside breath samples. Of these checked, three impaired driving-related charges have been made. There have been 9 three-day suspensions the place motorists registered a warning on roadside gadgets.
There have been additionally 24 Freeway Site visitors Act charges and one Hashish Management Act cost.
Workers Sgt. Scott Griffiths of the WRPS Site visitors Companies Unit mentioned that these numbers have remained comparatively unchanged from vacation to vacation.
“There is not any season for this sadly,” he mentioned. “It is one thing that we handle or cope with all yr spherical.”
Nonetheless, he mentioned, it is an essential reminder whenever that everybody needs to be performing responsibly if consuming or utilizing medicine when celebrating the vacations.
“We have been very happy to see that a big majority of individuals have been making right selections and discovering alternate options to driving in the event that they have been consuming or utilizing medicine,” Griffiths mentioned.
Guelph police and Wellington OPP kick off their annual festive RIDE marketing campaign
Impaired driving is a matter all yr spherical, however Guelph police spokesperson Scott Tracey says the issue is worse through the vacation season. The joint marketing campaign kicks off this week and runs by means of the rest of 2024. (Cameron Mahler/CBC)
Guelph and past
Guelph Police Service spokesperson Scott Tracey instructed Ontario Chronicle that RIDE statistics this yr in that metropolis have been just about the identical as final yr.
This yr, of over 1,700 autos checked, there have been solely two impaired charges and 6 three-day license suspensions. These are the identical numbers as final yr when simply over 1,600 autos have been stopped.
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) additionally wrapped up their Festive RIDE numbers. Since Nov. 21, there have been 113 motorists charged with impaired driving in japanese Ontario.
In western Ontario, OPP did nearly 2,000 journey checks and had 292 impaired driving charges. In keeping with their launch, that is down from final yr’s 353 charges.
Within the launch, OPP mentioned to do not forget that RIDE packages do not cease after the vacations and may “occur wherever, anytime.”
The WRPS launch reminded drivers to plan forward and prepare for a journey dwelling and that every one younger, novice and industrial drivers should have zero alcohol and/or medicine of their system whereas driving.
