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Greater Sudbury Police are expanding their efforts to catch people who take drugs before getting behind the wheel.
Sgt. Eric Sanderson, head of Greater Sudbury Police Service’s traffic management unit, said right now, only two officers are trained to administer roadside tests to catch drugged drivers.
“We’re missing the boat when it comes to catching drugged drivers,” Sanderson told members of the police services board at its Nov. 15 meeting. “There are a lot of drug-impaired (drivers) out there.”
To boost enforcement, 10 front-line officers will receive training next month on how to spot drugged drivers, with more officers to be trained in early 2013.
Sanderson updated the board on a number of issues related to his six-member (seven, including Sanderson) traffic unit. He said one of the biggest problems they face is distracted drivers – especially people who text while they’re driving.
Ward 5 Coun. Ron Dupuis, who chairs the board, says he sees it almost every day.
“You drive around this city, and it seems like a lot of young people are texting with their phones while they’re driving, as if the law doesn’t exist,” Dupuis said. “You see them swerving while they’re driving. Are we capturing a lot of these people?”
“We’re getting a lot of them,” Sanderson replied, adding they lay about 100 distracted driving charges a month.
He said distracted driving accounts for about 80 per cent of all crashes.
“I see them at red lights, texting,” he said. “And then they sit there when it turns green, and I just want to get out of the car and throttle them.”
Distracted and impaired driving continues to be a huge problem among young drivers, Sanderson said, despite outreach efforts by police to visit schools and educate them on the issue.
“Right now, roughly 50 per cent of my impaired statistics are drivers aged 16-25,” he said. “You have to be active out there on the streets. You have to be involved with the schools. We’re doing presentations in the classrooms. We’re talking to 17-year-old kids who are out there, driving, going to parties. That’s who we have to reach.”
He said he often asks students when he does in-class presentations why so many of them still drink and drive.
“They say, ‘Well, we just make bad decisions.’ And what else can I say? At that age, that’s really what it is. They make bad decisions.”
What they don’t realize is how many young people are killed by drunk drivers, something that hits close to home for him.
“There’s nothing I hate more than having to knock on someone’s door” to tell them a loved one has been killed in a drunk driving accident, Sanderson said. “I’ve done 96 fatalities since I’ve been here, and I’ve had to knock on an awful lot of doors.”
On the positive side, Sanderson told the board his six-person traffic unit has significantly upgraded its skills in the last year.
“We’ve never had the level of qualification in this branch as we do right now to do our collision work,” he said.
For example, two officers are level 4 reconstructionists, Sanderson said.
“Basically that means they can take apart a collision and rebuild it,” he said. “So we’ll know the speeds, we’ll know who did what – all from roadway evidence, from tire marks, from crash damage. They can tell you all that stuff.”
Two officers are also pedestrian/cyclist reconstructionists, which means they can take apart a collision between a car and a cyclist or pedestrian and tell you what happened.
“And that’s a huge issue here in Sudbury. The injuries are usually catastrophic.
“And we also have a licensed automotive mechanic. And what an asset that is.”
Sanderson said the force conducts three RIDE checks a month, stopping motorists and looking for impaired drivers.
“They have been extremely, extremely effective in the last couple of months, in particular,” he said. “We’re catching one or two impaired drivers every time out ... It’s a sad statement that we’re getting that many, but we are.”
He supports the police policy of releasing the names of people charged with drunk driving three times a month.
“It’s a bold move, but it’s a brave move. We should have been doing it all along.”
Board member Gerry Lougheed Jr. praised the traffic unit for being able to accomplish so much with so few officers.
“I think you’re one of the huge success stories of police services,” Lougheed said. “I go back and forth between Chelmsford four or five times a week, and you guys are always there. I don’t know how you do it with six people.”
Note: An earlier version of this story had incorrect figures for the number of level 4 reconstructionists and pedestrian/cyclist reconstructionists with the traffic unit. Northern Life apologizes for the error.
