British Columbia’s harsher penalties for drunk driving and speeding have reduced fatal crashes, as well as hospital admissions and ambulance calls resulting from motor vehicle crashes, according to research from the Faculty of Medicine.
The study, led by Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine Jeffrey Brubacher, concluded that the changes to B.C.’s laws against driving while impaired, which took effect in September 2010, had the intended result of making B.C.’s roads safer.
Published online Aug. 14 in the American Journal of Public Health, the study estimated that fatal crashes declined 21 per cent, while crash-related hospital admissions dropped 8 per cent and crash-related ambulance calls fell 7.2 per cent. Based on those statistics, there were an estimated 84 fewer fatal crashes, 308 fewer hospital admissions and 2553 fewer ambulance calls for road trauma each year.
The beneficial effects of the new laws were due mostly to a reduction in crashes related to drinking and driving. A concurrent ratcheting-up of penalties for speeding and street racing was associated with a 21 per cent reduction in fatal crashes attributed to speeding alone, but that decline was not statistically significant, meaning it could be due to chance alone. The authors believe that the smaller effect on speeding-related crashes may be due to a lack of increased speed enforcement and because sanctions did not increase for most speeding drivers.
Under the changes that B.C. imposed in 2010, drivers who get caught for the first time with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .05% to .08% have their driver’s license immediately suspended for three days and, at police discretion, may also have their vehicle impounded for three days (instead of the previous one-day suspension and no vehicle impoundment). They also must pay fees of approximately $600, compared to no fine before. Drivers with a BAC higher than .08% have their licenses immediately suspended for 90 days and their vehicle impounded for 30 days.
Under the old laws there were no vehicle impoundments and the license suspension was delayed for 21 days to allow drivers to find alternate means of transport and to contest the charge.
In the months after the heavier penalties took effect, many owners of drinking establishments complained that the penalties for having a BAC higher than .05% was hurting their business. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) also challenged the new rules in court, arguing that the harsher penalties essentially criminalize drivers who fail a roadside blood-alcohol test or refuse to be tested.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled part of the law unconstitutional in 2011, saying there wasn’t an adequate system in place for motorists to appeal the more severe level of punishments for drivers deemed to have a BAC over .08%. The law was subsequently amended to require proof of inebriation on two separate machines. Last month, a B.C. Supreme Court judge dismissed a remaining BCCLA legal challenge.
Previous research by Dr. Brubacher and others at UBC, the University of Victoria and the B.C. Ministry of Justice had found a 40 per cent decrease in alcohol-related fatal crashes and a 23 per cent decrease in alcohol-related injury collisions in the year after the changes took effect.
Drawing on that previous research, the recent article asserts that the changes to the law and accompanying enforcement and media coverage – and not other factors – were responsible for the reduced rate of fatal crashes, hospital admissions and ambulance calls. Although B.C. also introduced fines for drivers using mobile phones during the study period, police have historically attributed few crashes to that behaviour. Nor was there a drop in fatal crashes in Washington State or Saskatchewan, whose laws remained constant during the study period. (There was a significant drop in Alberta, but the researchers attribute that to a “spillover” effect of media coverage, and the fact that Alberta began debating and then approved changes similar to B.C.’s during the study period.)
“Our findings add to the growing evidence that the new laws, although controversial to some, were associated with marked improvements in road safety,” says Dr. Brubacher, who is also a Scientist at the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, and Director of Vancouver General Hospital’s Emergency Medicine Research Division. “We hope that other jurisdictions will follow BC’s lead in implementing similar laws designed to deter dangerous driving.”