THUNDER BAY — This holiday season, city police are getting up early to catch motorists who are driving under the influence.
"We're seeing them on weekday mornings, weekday afternoons. Someone's driving to work and still over the legal limit from the night before; we're not surprised at anything anymore."
Constable Tom Armstrong told Newswatch Thunder Bay Police Service isn't just targeting Friday and Saturday night revellers.
TBPS has started positioning officers around the city for the seasonal RIDE program, which aims to get intoxicated drivers off the roads.
Officers will be doing enforcement throughout the month and over the holidays in an effort to continue getting the message out to the public not to drink and drive or do drugs and get behind the wheel.
"We're expanding our drug recognition expert program, and we're just becoming far more adept at identifying those drug-impaired drivers," said Armstrong.
"If you're on prescription medication or you use any sort of illicit drugs. . . be very conscious of driving, and it's something we're seeing more and more of, and we're continuing to crack down on that."
Armstrong noted that year to date, city police had made 164 impaired arrests, and 83 of those were drug-impaired charges.
Compared to last year, TBPS charged 217 people.
While the numbers are significantly lower at this time, Armstrong has previously said that many of these arrests are from calls for service and not through reduction measures like the RIDE program or other targeted enforcement initiatives.
Over the weekend, officers conducted two RIDE programs and, on both nights, made arrests.
Police conducted the first seasonal RIDE campaign over the weekend with unsettling success.
On Friday night, within the first hour, a female in their 30s was arrested for intoxicated driving.
Then, on Saturday night, officers arrested another woman for driving while intoxicated and a male for intoxicated by drugs and driving. Both suspects were in their 30s.
Both of those arrests happened within the first 40 minutes of the RIDE program on Saturday evening.
Armstrong called the program those nights a success for being able to get those individuals off the streets.
However, he also noted that finding them so early on in the evening was alarming.
"There are severe legal consequences," he said.
"We hope people finally wake up and understand that."
