Greater Sudbury Police Services launched their festive RIDE (Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere) campaign on Nov. 28.
Officers set up a spot check on MR 80 in Hanmer and checked hundreds of vehicles to ensure that drivers were getting where they were going in a safe and sober manner.
The police service runs RIDE spot checks throughout the year, but there is some added focus on stemming impaired driving during the holiday season.
"The whole premise is that during the Christmas season drinking is intensified," said Sgt. Tim Burtt, GSPS. "We know that people are going to parties more often so there's definitely a focus on Friday and Saturday nights during the month of December."
In addition to the "typical party nights" GSPS has added morning and daytime spot checks to their campaign this year as they are finding impaired drivers at all hours of the day.
"We're focusing on different time frames this year, mornings and afternoons we're still catching impaired drivers," said Burtt. "We get a lot of morning afters where people were out late partying and they are still impaired in the morning. We've had a lot of morning collisions that we've responded to where the driver was impaired."
GSPS charged a 53-year-old man for driving while impaired at the Safe Ride Home Sudbury launch on Nov. 14, during a spot check that was taking place at 4 p.m.
"We set up our spot check at 4, and by 4:30 we had our first impaired charge," said Burtt.
Officers and volunteers lined MR 80 on Wednesday afternoon, checking drivers as they passed through the spot check. Drivers who were found to be unimpaired were given red ribbons to serve as a reminder to drive sober.
Cracking down on impaired driving isn't limited to just automobiles, and GSPS will be keeping an eye out and performing spot checks on snowmobiles this winter as well.
"We know of the events like fishing derbies where people are arriving by snowmobile," said Burtt. "We want to send the message that just because you're on a sled or a boat, doesn't mean you can't be charged for impaired driving."
The spots checks serve more than just catching impaired drivers; on Wednesday GSPS had their license plate scanner on site and were pulling over drivers whose plates were flagged by the scanner for any issues with the Ministry of Transportation. Additionally, officers check for things like seatbelt infractions and distracted driving.
Greater Sudbury Police have set their schedule as far as dates that they'll be out on the roads conducting spot checks during the festive season, but the locations and times are flexible and will be determined as the police service sees fit.
"We have our dates that we want to be out and from there will determine where we want to go and when," said Burtt. "It's not going to be the same places all the time because we know people will try to avoid those areas."
On the matter of avoiding RIDE spot checks, Burtt says it doesn't pay to try to skirt the law. During the Nov. 14 Safe Ride Home Sudbury launch, three vehicles turned around and tried to get away from being checked by police.
"We'll have cars at the end that will go after the people who see us and take off," said Burtt. "There were three impaired last spot check and there were two, one got caught, one got away, that took off when they saw the spot check. If people think they're going to take off they're just compiling problems for themselves."
