Winter counterattack road checks begin across B.C.

Drunk drivers beware.

Counter Attack road checks began today, and will continue throughout the holiday season.  

Despite the yearly warnings and the tough laws on the books in B.C., drunk drivers still kill more than 80 people every year.

A quarter of all car crash fatalities are directly related to impaired drivers. Justice Minister Suzanne Anton says the road checks first launched in 1977 have been effective reducing those numbers, but the they are still too high.

“Any number higher than zero is unacceptable in B.C.,” she said.

ICBC will continue to help with the funding necessary to continue road checks.

In the last 5 years the average number of deaths is much higher in rural parts of the Province.

According to ICBC using a 5-year average, regions with a fraction of Metro Vancouver’s population have in some cases more fatalities.

Southern Interior: 29
Lower Mainland: 23
North/Central B.C.: 22
Vancouver Island: 13

While ICBC can’t say why there is such a difference, criminal lawyer Paul Doroshenko says the likelihood of being caught plays a significant role in people’s decision to drink and drive.  

Doroshenko says deterrence works, and in small communities people know police resources are stretched so thin the chance of running into a police officer is rare, let alone a road check.  

“If people think they won’t get caught, they will get behind the wheel,” he adds.

B.C.’s tough drunk driving laws are being hailed as one of the reasons for the decline in the number of fatalities. There has been a 50 per cent reduction in the number of deaths since the laws were brought in in 2012.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Dale Somerville says holiday-goers have to have a plan to get home safely.

“If you get behind the wheel drunk, you will lose your licence, you will lose your ride, and if the conditions are right…you will face a criminal charge.”