After the dumpster fire of a year that was 2020 we would like to start 2021 off with some good news. Unfortunately, the new year started off with some bad news for drivers – tougher driving penalties.
BC Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth wrote an op-ed in which he hinted at tougher penalties for excessive speeding, distracted driving and drug-impaired driving. The minister, who oversees safety on BC’s roads is considering the new measures for drivers in the new year.
Crash statistics
The year 2019 was the “safest time” to be on BC’s roads in years, according to Farnworth. Statistics for police-reported crashes, overall fatalities and injuries, motorcyclist fatalities, deaths linked to high-risk driving and deaths at intersections were all at their lowest in five years.
Despite this, two people die every three days on BC roads in 2019. Farnworth said the persistent nature of these problems was “particularly concerning”, with speed, distraction and impairment the top contributing factors, in that order.
IRP for drug-impaired driving
The government has talked about a separate Immediate Roadside Prohibition scheme for drug-impaired driving for years. In the op-ed, Farnworth said the government has “every intention” of creating a drug-impaired driving IRP in response to an increase in crashes involving drug-impaired driving as a proportion of all impaired driving incidents.
A big obstacle to this new IRP is the lack of a federally-approved roadside screening device for drugs. How long that will take we don’t know. If you’ll remember, Farnworth backed the Draeger DrugTest 5000 when it was rolled out to police forces a few years ago. However, the device had its issues. For one, the test kits had to be kept between 4C and 30C in temperature, rendering it useless for much of Canada for much of the year. Some police forces, including the Vancouver PD, opted not to deploy the device in their vehicles.
Will the new IRP for drug-impaired driving happen any time soon? Mark this one as wait-and-see.
Excessive speeding and distracted driving
In addition to drug-impaired driving IRPs, Farnworth suggested new measures to curtail excessive speeding. Exactly what measures they are looking at is not clear. Here is what he said on excessive speeding:
“Still, police continue to catch idiots driving at ridiculous speeds. It’s not just frustrating – it’s deadly. In my second term as B.C.’s public safety minister, I’ll be listening to police, ministry staff, other road-safety partners and the public for ideas about how we can stop these drivers for good.”
Distracted driving
Farnworth said the continued prevalence of distracted driving was a concern. Police issued around 42,000 distracted driving tickets each year for the past five years. The government plans to evaluate the effectiveness of tougher measures for distracted driving introduced in the last couple of years, including higher insurance premiums and possible driving prohibitions.