LPS Check Stop -- LNN

By Dori Modney

As long as impaired driving continues, so will Check Stops

Dec 22, 2019 | 12:33 PM

LETHBRIDGE — Check Stops! Police can set them up in minutes along any roadside. The officers are practiced, efficient and they mean business.

Typically, the big Check Stop season is December, when there is a higher number of people on the road who might be impaired by drugs or alcohol. To that end, a Check Stop was set up Friday (Dec 20) evening along Bridge Drive.

Constable Kristen Songer, with the LPS Traffic Response Unit, was one of the officers on-site.

“Check Stop season is very important and, of course, in December we get into full swing. It’s very important that we set up these Check Stops to check the sobriety of drivers on the road and make sure everyone is getting home safely, after parties or after being out. During the months where we’re celebrating holidays, we see the number of impaired drivers go up because there are more parties, work parties and that sort of thing that people are attending.”

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Stricter impaired driving laws came into effect in December of 2018. Songer explains it gives police across the country the authority to demand a breathalyzer test from anyone they choose, regardless of whether they display signs of impairment.

“With the mandatory alcohol screening, we find that we’re able to detect, or pick up people who are impaired by alcohol a lot more than we might have in the past. So, it’s been a very good tool for us to use and very effective – essentially, it gives the police authority to pull over anyone and check the sobriety of the driver, by having hem provide a breath sample.”

“If we come across someone who is impaired, if it’s their first offence, their vehicle will be seized for three days and they’re charged criminally with impaired driving and operating a motor vehicle over .08, because the legal limit is 80-miligrams, said Songer. “If it’s a second or subsequent offence, the length of the vehicle seizure goes up to five days, and of, course, for GDL (Graduated Drivers Licence) drivers there is zero tolerance for alcohol in your system and zero tolerance for drugs.”

The testing is not just for alcohol, as police can also screen for impairment from cannabis and other drugs, which involves a series of coordination tests.

“The check stop involves mostly breath samples, but if we find someone we believe is impaired by marijuana or any other drugs, prescription drugs a well, we will perform those coordination tests, to make sure they are O-K to drive.”

“The number of drivers impaired by drugs has gone up, and we’re finding that people have upwards of six or seven drugs in their system at any given time – that’s quite an alarming number.”

Songer notes that most people are very receptive to the Check Stops and officers get a lot of feedback from the people who are happy to see them out and checking for impaired drivers

Officers are not the only ones present at the Check Stops. Anita Huchala, President of Madd (Mothers against Drunk Drivers) Lethbridge and area, has a group of volunteers who also help out on scene.

“It’s important that we’re out here and talking to the public and letting them know that we are out here, we have a little treat bag that we give them after an officer has cleared them, to say thank-you for not driving impaired.”

“It’s definitely important, explains Huchala, “ If you talk to a family that’s had that knock on the door at 3:00-am informing them that they’ve lost their loved one to an impaired driver, that’s part of the reason we are out here, it’s to take these impaired drivers off the road so that a family doesn’t get that knock on thee door.”

Huchala asks partiers to make a conscious choice before they are not able to – meaning, before you’ve had too much to drink and you’re not making those wise choices.

Constable Songer confirms the LPS Traffic Unit will have Check Stops throughout the holiday season and throughout the city. The Check Stops can continue into the early morning hours and pull over hundred of vehicles. It’s very important that if you’re participating in the holidays, you must find other modes of transportation and not end up at the police station.

“Not drinking and driving is absolutely important, it’s completely preventable, there are so many other options that people have in order to get home after celebrating – they can call friends, family, they can take a taxi, there’s lots of transportation apps that are available now, and there is the University’s Operation Red Nose – we want people to get home safe.”

LPS Check Stop — LNN