Calgary police look to reduce impaired driving over holidays

Although the number of drunk driving charges stayed the same over the holidays, Calgary police hope the trend continues to drop.

Police charged roughly the same number of people during this year’s holiday season compared to previous years.

In December 99 people were charged with impaired driving after testing positive for having more than 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood.

Another 122 people were charged without giving a blood or breath sample.

Staff Sgt. Michael Watterston hopes the holiday numbers will drop.

“With the introduction of the new administrative penalties for impaired driving in 2012, there was a lot of discussion in the community about impaired driving and its consequences,” he said. “We hope that level of awareness will continue, and that we’ll see charges and suspensions decline over the next year.”

A total of 34 people died in collisions in 2012 with 15 of those collisons involving alcohol.

Aside from the holiday season, alcohol-related criminal charges dropped nine per cent while there was a 10 per cent drop in suspensions for impairment last year compared to 2011.