It was a sobering end to the year and start of a new one for the 812 drivers who were charged with a total of 1,258 impaired driving offences by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) during its annual Festive RIDE campaign.
OPP officers were undeterred as they worked through some of the most intense winter storms in recent history, committed as ever to taking impaired drivers and other alcohol/drug-related driving offenders off the road and keeping holiday travelers safe.
During the campaign, officers conducted close to 10,000 RIDE stops throughout the province, checking approximately 240,000 drivers and investigating those suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. Officers also exercised their Mandatory Alcohol Screening (MAS) authority, which allows them to demand a breath sample from any lawfully stopped driver, even if there is no suspicion or evidence of alcohol consumption.
The OPP also issued 208 Warn Range Suspensions and 21 Zero Tolerance Suspensions to drivers during the seven-week initiative.
The OPP thanks all road users and citizens who reported suspected impaired drivers to police and did their part to keep roads safe over the holidays.
Drivers are reminded that the OPP conducts RIDE events throughout the year as part of its ongoing efforts to save lives on Ontario roads.
The OPP Festive RIDE Campaign ran from November 17, 2022 to January 2, 2023.
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Brian Tapley says
I’m a bit confused by the reporting here.
It is great that the OPP are out there doing this job. You’d kind of think that after all these years and advertising, telling us not to drink and drive, that this whole process would by now be unnecessary but that seems a forlorn hope.
I’m curious the numbers in the reporting.
When it says they preformed 10,000 ride stops and checked 240,000 drivers???
Theoretically there would need to be always one driver in the vehicle, so would not 10,000 ride stops equal 10,000 drivers? Or maybe they were all 24 passenger buses, every seat with controls so all 24 people per vehicle were “drivers”??
Obviously something is wrong here.
Maybe a “ride stop” is nomenclature for a set up, and thus many drivers could go through it but this interpretation would indicate an average of just 24 vehicles for each ride set up. This too seems illogical.
The numbers quoted are so vague as to be meaningless to anyone not intimately connected to the RIDE program and reporting should not result in this issue.
Thanks to those police however as I’m sure, regardless of how the numbers are quoted by some reporting, their actions have helped.