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Drinking and driving on the rise at the holiday RIDE stops
By:
Deutschmann Personal Injury & Disability Law (Lawyers)
| Published 12/03/2018
Waterloo Regional Police Tweeted the last weekend's RIDE results were disappointing. They laid TEN impaired driving related charges. This is a sad result when you consider all of the options that are available during the holiday season for rides home.
Drinking and driving convictions now can cost as much as $23,000 when you figure in all of the fines, insurance rate increases, ignition interlock charges, driving school, etc. If you are convicted of a criminal offence many countries, including the United States, will deny you entry. You may impact your ability to find a job (any job that requires you to have a security clearance or be bondable for example). You may impact your future legal situation. You can jeopardize custody of your children in the case of divorce. If you have your children in the car you can lose custody of them. The lifelong repercussions of drunk/impaired driving are serious.
There are options:
- Take transit.
- Take a cab or Uber or other ride share.
- Have a designated driver.
- Use a car service that comes and picks you and your car up from the party and drives you home.
- Make hotel reservations or plans to stay over at the party.
If you find that you’ve had more to drink than you expected, you can still:
- Call a cab or Uber or ride service.
- Take transit.
- Call a friend or family and explain you are drunk/impaired and need a ride.
- Ask to stay at your friend’s house or explain to the party venue that you are impaired and shouldn’t be driving.
- Ask a sober person to drive you and your car home.
The penalties for impaired driving are already serious and will be increasing on January 1, 2019 to include even harsher fines and penalties.
Whatever you do, do not drive home impaired. You may lose more than your licence. For the complete list of consequences for impaired driving check out the MTO site.
