More penalties for impaired drivers with enhanced checkstops

Calgary police say they’ve had a successful enhanced checkstop campaign in the past couple of months.

The numbers come over three day periods in February and March.

Traffic unit Staff Sgt. Paul Stacey told 660 NEWS, the last check stop was on St. Patrick’s day.

“What we found was a lot of people were out celebrating, and for whatever reason, they decided to try driving home,” he said.

In total, Stacey said 68 vehicles were towed or seized because of impaired drivers or drivers with a blood alcohol level at 0.05 or higher.

“We wound up charging 18 people with impaired driving. We had 24 that were over the provincial limit that received immediate roadside suspensions,” he said. “Fifteen zero-alcohol tolerance suspensions. And we had 11 24-hour suspensions for drugs. Ten of those suspensions were for marijuana.”

One case involved a woman who was out celebrating her 18th birthday with her mother. The mother was driving, but she had enough alcohol in her system to warrant a 72-hour license suspension.

Enhanced checkstops are funded by the province and are over and above regular CPS checkstops.

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