The Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere (RIDE) program – a provincial sobriety testing program – saw 16 criminal charges last year versus zero in 2018.
Acting Sgt. Jason Herder explained at the Tuesday Police Services Board meeting that 12 of those charges came from one stopped vehicle, bringing the number of individual charges to five.
Between 2016 and 2018 there were a total of five criminal charges laid under the RIDE program.
After Herder’s presentation, Mayor Darrin Canniff said he hoped that drinking and driving would have improved under the RIDE program.
“It looks like it improved as far as what we are catching, but I’d like to think there was less ‘fish in the water’ action. As a police service, do we feel like we’re making progress with people not drinking and driving?” Canniff asked
Herder said they haven’t yet figured out the answer to that question however, the force was being called out more.
Jenna Cocullo, Local Journalism Initiative, The Chatham Voice
