Statistics Canada Article on Impaired Driving in Canada

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat has published an article entitled Impaired driving in Canada, 2015.

It presents data on police-reported impaired driving, including data specific to drug-impaired driving. It looks at the age and sex of accused persons and the time of day or time of year when those incidents occur.

Among the highlights:

•  In 2015, police reported 72,039 impaired driving incidents, representing a rate of 201 incidents per 100,000 population. This is the lowest rate since data on impaired driving were first collected in 1986 (-65%) and 4% lower than in 2014.
• Almost 3,000 drug-impaired driving incidents were reported, representing 4% of all impaired driving incidents, double the proportion in 2009, when data on drug-impaired driving became available. 
• The majority of persons charged with impaired driving in 2015 were male. However, the proportion who were females has substantially increased over the past 30 years, from 8% in 1986 to 20% in 2015.
• Young adults aged 20 to 24 years had the highest impaired driving rates. However, the largest declines in rates since 2009 were also observed among young drivers.
• Almost half of impaired driving incidents reported by police in 2014 occurred between 11:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. This is also the time period which has shown the largest declines in recent years. Compared with alcohol-impaired driving, drug-impaired driving varies much less by day and time of day.
•  Drug-impaired driving incidents were less likely to be cleared by charge than alcohol-impaired driving incidents. When heard by the courts, these cases also took longer to resolve and were less likely to result in a guilty finding.
• At least 1 out of 6 persons accused in an impaired driving court case in 2014/2015 had been previously accused in another impaired driving case during the preceding 10 years.