Are there any circumstances where you have no choice but to drive drunk? If you ask a police officer, chances are that, at least according to them, there are no circumstances where you’d have no choice but to drive drunk. But let’s say your sober, designated driver suddenly had an acute illness – a heart attack – while driving. Even though you’re impaired, you’d be forced to take the wheel in this scenario to prevent a crash. Some scenarios are less obvious. What if, during the middle of a drinking session, a friend fell and you had no other alternative to transport him to the hospital? Or what if you had just become involved in a fight, and you have no choice but to flee in a vehicle, even though you’re drunk?
Some may call these circumstances far-fetched, but we assure you, these cases happen regularly. After all, we have a large population in this country and all sorts of people at any given time are facing complex situations. Unfortunately, regardless of the reason an impaired driver drove, police will likely accuse you of impaired driving, and you will have to answer to the allegation. It’s not pleasant, and you may have felt you had no choice but to drive drunk, but it is likely you will be penalized for it.
Fortunately, the courts have in some cases acquitted drivers of impaired driving, even though they were driving drunk, precisely because these drivers had no other choice at the time.
If you ask a police officer, chances are that, at least according to them, there are no circumstances where you’d have no choice but to drive drunk.
My friend is injured. I have no choice but to drive drunk to the hospital
This case was really a series of unfortunate circumstances all culminating in a drunk man believing that if he didn’t drive, his friend would die. The story goes like this: two friends were spending an evening having drinks while their wives were out playing bingo together.
They decide to go outside for a smoke, but one of the two stumbled down a flight of stairs and struck his head hard. Neither of them had a cell phone. The building didn’t have a buzzer, so they couldn’t alert their neighbours. Neither had a set of keys for the building, either – their wives took the keys with them. The man who struck his head became “short of breath and incoherent,” and his friend thought he was “going to die.” He panicked and drove his friend to the hospital, where he was booked for drunk driving.
The case happened in Nova Scotia, and when it arrived at court, even the judge acknowledged that the series of events was “extraordinary” and had required a sense of urgency. The judge determined that while the man could have waited to go elsewhere for help, the medical emergency was serious enough that the driver was right to feel he had no other option.
The judge also weighed the potential consequence of “harm inflicted” versus “harm avoided.” That is, by breaking the law, would the harm potentially caused by the driver outweigh the harm avoided by taking his friend to the hospital?
“In this case there appeared to objectively be a sincere and dire medical emergency. Were (the friend) to suffer irreparable harm as a result of delay in obtaining medical attention, it would surely outweigh the harm brought on in this case of the impaired driving.”
I drove drunk to get away from violence
This case involves a woman who had been drinking with her boyfriend when they found themselves in the parking lot of a restaurant in Williams Lake, BC. The woman and her boyfriend remained in the car while her two children went inside the restaurant to get a bite. The couple began to argue, and the argument evolved into her boyfriend rummaging through the vehicle for his belongings, while tossing items onto the pavement.
At one point, the boyfriend made a swinging motion at one of her children. He also threatened to break the vehicle’s windows. At some point, the woman scratched her boyfriend’s face and neck. The man called the police, and during this time, the woman took the vehicle and tried to drive away – only to be stopped by a police officer arriving on scene.
The court determined she was in imminent peril, even though she had not been physically attacked. She was trying to get away from someone who was throwing her possessions on the ground, pushing her away, and motioning as if he was going to hit her child. The court also considered whether she could have just gone inside the restaurant for help, or waited for police to arrive – she knew they were on the way. The woman argued that she didn’t believe the waitress inside the restaurant could have stopped her boyfriend, and she couldn’t otherwise escape, since she had to protect her 10-year-old child. The presence of her child was a “critical” fact to the court.
She was acquitted of impaired driving.
I was ordered to drive by someone who abuses me
This was another unique circumstance. A woman who was impaired was told by her boyfriend to take the wheel after their vehicle was pulled over by police. The boyfriend had been drinking and, presumably, wanted someone else to take the blame. The woman testified that she had recently been assaulted by her boyfriend, and she was scared of what would happen if she refused.
The court didn’t believe her. It had this to say:
“In particular, I note that the police were in close proximity and that (the accused) could have removed herself from the vehicle instead of driving it forward. (The accused) could have easily taken the driver’s seat, opened the door and approached the police car behind the van and asked for assistance. (The accused’s) fear related to what (her boyfriend) would do to her when she got home. She was not fearful of (her boyfriend) while she was in the vehicle. I note that others, including her brother, were in the vehicle with her.”
A number of factors played against the woman. The court found that her evidence that she was in an abusive relationship was weak – she never called police to report the assault. She also declined to bring in medical records for the alleged assault, and her story changed, from describing an abusive relationship to saying her boyfriend had only assaulted her once in eight years.
The court found that a person in an abusive relationship could potentially raise a defence in cases such as this woman’s, but that this specific case lacked the evidence to prove she was under duress and was forced to take the wheel while impaired.
What to do if you had no choice but to drive drunk?
Drinking driving law is not a perfect science. In many cases, the courts have allowed drivers to raise a defence of necessity or duress. But these defences are not always successful. What is clear is that there can be a number of scenarios where someone must drive drunk because they had no other choice.
In these scenarios, police officers are often not sympathetic to why an accused person had to drive drunk, forcing drivers to defend their actions in court. We’re not saying all police officers will refuse to use their discretion, but all too often someone who has no choice but to drive drunk is then punished for taking a course of action that any reasonable person would.
If you had no choice but to drive drunk, whether it’s to get away from violence, to seek medical aid or for any other reason, give us a call. We have years of experience defending impaired driving allegations, and will always do our best to defend drivers who had no choice but to drive drunk. 604-685-8889.