THUNDER BAY — TBnewswatch and this reporter were granted an exclusive opportunity to ride with Thunder Bay Police while they conducted their Festive RIDE program in various parts of the city.
Once official papers were signed off and confirmed, it was time to enter the inner sanctum of the police station on the evening of Dec 22.
In a briefing room with eight city police officers and a Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service member, officers discussed the evening's plan to keep city streets free of intoxicated drivers.
Const. Tom Armstrong led the briefing, detailing the specific areas of the city for police to target in their hunt for alcohol and drug-impaired drivers.
"I've got some ideas in mind, and we usually kind of spitball some ideas, and I've got a list of things that have proven to be successful," Armstrong said.
"But then I'm also trying to come up with new and creative spots, things that are kind of unexpected and maybe just different and unique."
It quickly became clear a RIDE program doesn't just happen, that there is plenty of prep work involved to get the officers ready to hit the streets.
Armstrong told the officers the most efficient -- and safest -- ways to position their vehicles and where to stand to ensure both high-visibility and safety when stopping passing vehicles.
At this point, officers were paired, handed keys to patrol cars and given directions to meet at the first checkpoint location, in this case along Junot Avenue, between Windsor and Walkover streets.
Always on the lookout, officers kept a close eye on the streets as they made their way to the RIDE checkpoint, even stopping a truck on Memorial Avenue after its driver was observed pulling out of a parking lot at a high rate of speed and driving in an erratic manner.
The driver in question was ultimately cleared by the attending officer and released.
After arriving at Junot Avenue, officers positioned themselves at either end of the street, donning high-visibility vests and flashlights.
They quickly got to work.
Every driver that passed was stopped and checked by the officers, highly trained to recognize various types of impairment.
Const. Brooke Pilley said officers are looking for certain telltale signs of impairment.
"Catching a whiff of alcohol [on their breath], or we can ask them where they've been or if they admit to drinking," Pilley on the initial signs he's looking for in a possible alcohol-impaired driver.
Drug-impaired drivers also show various signs officers seek out, many of them overlapping the signs of possible alcohol impairment.
"If we suspect drugs, rather than put them on a roadside [breathalyzer test], we could put them through a standardized [field] sobriety test," Pilley said.
An officer may ask suspected individuals to walk a straight line in one direction, using painted road lines, then have them turn around and do it again. They may also be asked to perform various balancing tasks.
"Then, based on the tests and how they perform, you might determine if it's alcohol, you might determine its drugs, or maybe they pass everything with flying colours," Pilley said.
On this night, fewer than five drivers were instructed to pull over and be tested on the "box," police vernacular for the breathalyzer device.
All drivers at this location were found to be under the limit and sent on their way.
After spending a couple of hours in the city's north end, police broke off into smaller groups. One of the groups was directed to the intersection of Ford and Frederica streets.
Here, the officers finally encountered drivers suspected of being intoxicated, to some degree.
A NAPS officer asked one motorist to pull over in order to administer a breathalyzer test. While removing his keys from the ignition, at the request of police, the man accidentally threw them out his open window.
Once the breathalyzer was complete, it indicated that the driver had blown in the "warn" range.
This results in an automatic three-day license suspension, a $250 penalty from the police and a $281 driver's license reinstatement fee from the MTO.
Another driver was stopped at the intersection; this male youth was 17 years old and admitted to drinking when questioned by police.
The youth only had a G2 license and is also younger than 22. Both of these are in violation of Ontario's zero-tolerance law for young drivers under 22, who are not permitted to have any alcohol in their system and/or have a G1, G2, M1 or M2 license.
According to Armstrong, the youth had no prior known history of vehicular offences, and police decided to issue only one of four eligible tickets to the youth: a three-day license suspension for being a novice driver after consuming alcohol.
The result was a $195 fine, a $281 driver's license reinstatement fee, plus any possible costs or consequences associated with their insurance company.
Meanwhile, the officers that had split from the original group were on the move after receiving reports of a driver of a work vehicle spotted behind the wheel and not moving at an intersection.
Officers arrived to find a man asleep; traffic lights cycled through unnoticed.
This man was arrested and brought into custody by the attending officers and faces a seven-day vehicle impoundment and 30-day license suspension, on top of driving under the influence charges.
Over the course of the evening, a majority of the vehicles that were stopped through the Festive RIDE program were agreeable, and many expressed gratitude to the police officers for their work in keeping the city's roads safe.
While the night was relatively uneventful in terms of catching multiple drunk drivers, it was fruitful in creating awareness in each of the neighbourhoods that police are out there doing what they can to keep city roads safe.
