1,137 B.C. drunk driving penalties to be refunded

[diggerdick]

blue ribbon for individual thought OH JOY Someone is giving away brownie points

[goatboy]

Those are the stats for "legitimate" criminal impaired driving convictions....ones that have gone to court and found guilty of said charge.
Go over those stats again........you will see what I mean.

I understand what you're saying. What I'm saying is that due to bad case law, crown will only approve a drunk driving charge under a very narrow set of acceptable circumstances, that have nothing to do with whether the driver was actually impaired or not. This bad case law has the effect of ensuring only the narrowest of infractions are actually seen by a judge, hence creating a very high conviction rate.

Example: (and I'm not a lawyer or police officer so I think I'm correct) There is a collision involving a drunk driver. One witness. Witness observes drunk driver exit drivers seat immediately after collision but witness goes into nearby business to call police. Police arrive to find the registered owner (drunk driver) sitting in the drivers seat. Driver blows over .08 but witness cannot say that they saw driver whole time until police arrived as they were in the business calling police. Because there is a loss of driver continuity this charge would probably not be approved. Bad case law will not even allow a judge to contemplate the rest of the evidence to determine whether there is a reasonable doubt of the drivers guilt.

[my5cents]

The only way to correctly interpret the conviction rates for the THREE offenses laid out in the Criminal Code of Canada is to have knowledge of the way in which various police forces score the various outcomes of EACH charge laid ... Scoring offenses under the motor vehicle act of each province (including impaired, over 08, and administrative consequences for drinking and driving offenses) is a whole other matter.

It would be VERY interesting if BC is including their IRP stats in those numbers, considering they were allowed to avoid Charter arguments in relation to the IRP by acerting that the motorists receiving IRPs were not committing an offense thus the Charter didn't apply.

The governments position being that the IRP was the same as the OSMV noting you have had too many tickets and suspending your DL. (maybe the OSMV [Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles] deputized all BC cops as "Deputy Superintendents")

So do we need a new word in BC ?

When a person is accused of something, they are the "accused". When tried and found guilty they are "convicted".

So I get stopped and given an IRP, I'm a what ? I'm not an "accused", there is no trial, so I'm not "convicted". Am I an "administrated", or just an "urp"

[Trigger69]

It would be VERY interesting if BC is including their IRP stats in those numbers, considering they were allowed to avoid Charter arguments in relation to the IRP by acerting that the motorists receiving IRPs were not committing an offense thus the Charter didn't apply.

The governments position being that the IRP was the same as the OSMV noting you have had too many tickets and suspending your DL. (maybe the OSMV [Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles] deputized all BC cops as "Deputy Superintendents")

So do we need a new word in BC ?

When a person is accused of something, they are the "accused". When tried and found guilty they are "convicted".

So I get stopped and given an IRP, I'm a what ? I'm not an "accused", there is no trial, so I'm not "convicted". Am I an "administrated", or just an "urp"

I think and I could be mistaken here but if you were caught driving while impaired then you were handed an Immediate Road Side Prohibition (IRP). This is geared to get your drunk butt off of the road.

[jerome2877]

I think and I could be mistaken here but if you were caught driving while impaired then you were handed an Immediate Road Side Prohibition (IRP). This is geared to get your drunk butt off of the road.

Yep your mistaken here. The 24 hour suspension was designed to get peoples "drunk butts" off the road. The IRP on the other hand was designed to circumvent our courts and punish people while striping the rights of the people of BC!

[ticat900]

"my5cents"]

all they had to do was give u a MANDATORY 3 seperate breath readings at roadside.Faill all three its MORE than Obvious your over limit.
why does a person need a court date? for what reason??

Exactly,,,, and I also have no idea why they stopped lynching horse thieves.[/quote]


Thats because they never had breathilizers back then you dummy!! .seriously u really beleive if u failed THREE certified breath results from 3 seperate readers U still should be allowed to go to court and plead not guilty?

[jerome2877]

"my5cents"]

Thats because they never had breathilizers back then you dummy!! .seriously u really beleive if u failed THREE certified breath results from 3 seperate readers U still should be allowed to go to court and plead not guilty?

Why two or three? I'll tell you why... Its because they are not reliable, otherwise one would be enough wouldn't it? Streamlining impaired driving administratively and using devices that will not stand up in court is a slap in the face of justice.

[ticat900]

"jerome2877"]

"my5cents"]

Thats because they never had breathilizers back then you dummy!! .seriously u really beleive if u failed THREE certified breath results from 3 seperate readers U still should be allowed to go to court and plead not guilty?

Why two or three? I'll tell you why... Its because they are not reliable, otherwise one would be enough wouldn't it? Streamlining impaired driving administratively and using devices that will not stand up in court is a slap in the face of justice.[/quote]
iam pretty sure their 99.9% acurate so by using 3 its about 100% certain ur either impaired or not. eos

[my5cents]

Thats because they never had breathilizers back then you dummy!! .seriously u really beleive if u failed THREE certified breath results from 3 seperate readers U still should be allowed to go to court and plead not guilty?

I'll avoid rude categorizations,,,, 3, 33, or 333 failures of a breath test doesn't prove you we're an over .05 or .08 driver, YOU MAY NOT HAVE BEEN DRIVING. Not every drinking and driving investigation involves a sole person driving along a roadway and being stopped in clear sight of an honest police officer.

You are assuming many facts.

What do they say about assuming ?

[jerome2877]

i am pretty sure their 99.9% acurate so by using 3 its about 100% certain ur either impaired or not. eos

Oh... well if your "pretty sure" then that must be true and we should just do away with courts and judges. May as well put all the power in the hands of our honest police force who never lie cheat or murder people with tasers!

[my5cents]

Thats because they never had breathilizers back then you dummy!! .seriously u really beleive if u failed THREE certified breath results from 3 seperate readers U still should be allowed to go to court and plead not guilty?

Well, I know I'm a "dummy", but lets consider what you said :

- "Thats because they never had breathilizers back then"
Well considering the police DO NOT use Breathalizers to conduct IRP investigations that doesn't make any sense. One of the big arguments is that the device used to assess the IRP "guilt" is intended as a "SCREENING DEVICE" but is being used to nail a drinking driver for $4000 +

- "seriously u really beleive if u failed THREE certified breath results from 3 seperate readers U still should be allowed to go to court and plead not guilty?"
Yes I think as Canadians we all have the right to be presumed not guilty and have the right to a fair public trial, where we can cross examine witnesses. Like Seriously Dude. Duh......

The world is a complicated place. Not every situation is as cut and dry as you would like to believe. That grey area is exactly why we have the right to be assumed to be innocent until proven guilty.

I have given this example before : The husband who has sat at home with his wife's friend's husband while the gals go out for the evening. The girls arrive home in the wife's car, the friend packs up her husband and they leave. The wife heads to bed. The husband who has been drinking with his wife's friends husband, stays up. She calls from the bedroom that she has left her camera in the car parked outside at the roadside. The intoxicated husband goes out to the car and gets the camera out of the car as a similar car to his wife's races by. As he starts to walk from the car, the police pull up thinking his wife's car is the vehicle he was trying to catch up with. The cop will hear nothing of it, he knows our poor unsuspecting husband was an impaired driver trying to flee apprehension. No trial, he is guilty. He can appeal, what are the chances ? ?

[Trigger69]

Yep your mistaken here. The 24 hour suspension was designed to get peoples "drunk butts" off the road. The IRP on the other hand was designed to circumvent our courts and punish people while striping the rights of the people of BC!

I was referring to the ADP (Administrative Driving Prohibition) you get when you are caught drinking and driving. Yes you are also given a 24 hour at the outset but the ADP is a lot longer then 24 hours. Oh and it stands before you go to court...so really....

[jerome2877]

I was referring to the ADP (Administrative Driving Prohibition) you get when you are caught drinking and driving. Yes you are also given a 24 hour at the outset but the ADP is a lot longer then 24 hours. Oh and it stands before you go to court...so really....

Hmmm, not what you said though is it?
"Trigger69 wrote:
I think and I could be mistaken here but if you were caught driving while impaired then you were handed an Immediate Road Side Prohibition (IRP). This is geared to get your drunk butt off of the road."

The ADP is a whole other ball game, Its equally unfair as your punished before being found guilty! Another trick the OSMV pulls on people who in this country are innocent until proven guilty.

[my5cents]

The ADP is a whole other ball game, Its equally unfair as your punished before being found guilty! Another trick the OSMV pulls on people who in this country are innocent until proven guilty.

[Trigger69]

Hmmm, not what you said though is it?
"Trigger69 wrote:
I think and I could be mistaken here but if you were caught driving while impaired then you were handed an Immediate Road Side Prohibition (IRP). This is geared to get your drunk butt off of the road."

The ADP is a whole other ball game, Its equally unfair as your punished before being found guilty! Another trick the OSMV pulls on people who in this country are innocent until proven guilty.

True enough but exactly how is it a trick? I mean the people that are given the ADP's are taken back to the cop shop and have given samples of their breath and these samples have indicated that they were over the legal limit. Done deal in my view. In reading all the posts and in this thread and in others it seems that is the issue at hand, is it not? I would rather see the drunks taken off of the road this way than see anyone who is drunk let go because of a "loop hole". Its rather simple if you really sit back and think about it...a person is either drunk or not when pulled over. If samples of that person's breath are taken (either with a rode side machine or back at the office) and the samples show them to be over it only adds to the reasons they should be off the road.