Impaired driving rates rise for fourth time in five years but it’s not clear why

Despite years of public-awareness campaigns, the number of impaired-driving cases has risen consistently since 2007, according to the latest Statistics Canada data reported by The Canadian Press.

In a StatsCan release Thursday, the federal number crunchers said police reported more than 90,000 impaired-driving incidents in Canada in 2011, an increase of 3,000 from the previous year.

The rate of impaired driving was 262 per 100,000 population, two per cent higher than in 2010 and the fourth increase in five years, StatsCan reported. Before 2007, the impaired driving rate had been on a steady decline since the mid-1980s.

However, data showed the rates of impaired driving causing death or bodily harm per 100,000 was at its lowest rate in 25 years in 2011.

[ Related: Number of drunk driving cases rose two per cent in 2011: StatsCan ]

Experts will undoubtedly wonder about the trend. Is it due to better police enforcement as society sees impaired driving as a more serious offence, or have we hit some threshold where people are ignoring the flood of messages telling us that drinking and driving is bad?

In a separate article on the subject, statistician Samuel Perreault said trends in impaired driving varied across Canada over the last decade.

"Since 2001, the largest increases among the provinces have been seen in Newfoundland and Labrador (despite a drop in 2011) and British Columbia. While most of the other provinces have generally followed the national trend of increasing rates since 2006, the impaired driving rate has continued to decline in Quebec and Ontario."

It's no surprise that young people are heavily represented in the police-reported numbers. Adults aged 20 to 24 had the highest rates of impaired driving, with rates declining the older people get.

Men represented 82 per cent of all people charged in 2011 but StatsCan noted the impaired-driving rate for men has been declining for the last quarter century.

However, the rate among women has been rising since 2005, going to 18 per cent from eight per cent 25 years ago.

Most provinces experienced increases in impaired-driving rates, which were highest in the Northwest Territories and Yukon, followed by Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island. Ontario and Quebec reported the lowest rates, which have seen slight declines in the last five years.

Among cities, Kelowna, B.C. and St. John's had rates well above other cities, while Ontario cities Ottawa, London, Kingston and Windsor had the lowest rates.

StatsCan also found fewer impaired drivers are being jailed — eight per cent of those found guilty in 2010/11 compared with 1 per cent a decade earlier. The median sentence was 30 days over the period.

StatsCan didn't attempt to analyze why the numbers are going up but noted in a separate release on crime stats that in spite of the increase in the overall impaired-driving rate, the most serous form of the offence — impaired driving causing death — was trending down.

"The number of impaired driving offences reported by police can be influenced by a number of factors, including changes in legislation, enforcement practices (for example use of R.I.D.E programs) and changing societal attitudes toward drinking and driving," statistician Shannon Brennan wrote.

[ Related: MADD Canada report says law to tackle drug-impaired driving is not working ]

"Since July 2008, new legislation has allowed police to conduct mandatory roadside tests and assessments of drivers suspected to be impaired by drugs. Drug impairment accounted for two per cent of all impaired driving offences, with close to 1,900 incidents in 2011, 160 fewer than 2010."

MADD Canada notes that the Criminal Code sets the impaired-driving blood-alcohol limit at .08 but that almost every province and territory has been cracking down on drivers who test between the so-called warning limit of .05 and the official impaired red line. It's not clear whether those drivers figure into the increased rate StatsCan reports.