Holiday checkstops routine, even daytime

By Jeremy Appel on December 21, 2018.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

Police set up a checkstop on N. Railway Street on Tuesday afternoon, the day stricter impaired driving laws went into effect, but Medicine Hat Police Service Insp. Joe West says it was a routine Holiday season inspection.

“This was business as usual,” West said.

It’s “not unheard of” for police to set up afternoon checkstops in late December, although they usually occur at night, he said.

“We have had tragedies in the community here right around noon when we’ve got large volumes of traffic (and) young people out and about,” said West.

As of Dec. 18, police have the ability to test drivers for drug or alcohol impaired driving without reasonable suspicion.

“The rules had happened to change that day, so the process was a little bit different, and it was the first our officers have used mandatory alcohol screening,” West said. “We were able to get people on their way fairly quickly.”

Police stopped 150 vehicles during the stop. Two drivers were found to have had consumed alcohol, but both blew less than 0.05 per cent blood alcohol concentration.

One driver attempted to avoid the check stop. Their vehicle was tracked down and its registered owner was charged with Traffic Safety Act violations.

“We weren’t able to gather enough evidence to proceed with an impaired driving investigation at that time,” said West. “We lost sight of the vehicle, of course, and by the time we caught up with it, we just couldn’t prove impaired driving.

“We found the vehicle and not the driver, and couldn’t prove any certain person was driving the vehicle.”

MHPS have performed 33 checkstops this year, with more to come.

“There’s still going to be a frequency of checkstops over the height of the Holiday season in the next week or so,” said West.

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