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Information on how drinking alcohol impacts driving.
Changes to impaired driving laws
Alberta’s impaired driving laws changed effective December 1, 2020. A new Immediate Roadside Sanctions program will keep our roads safer by providing serious and immediate consequences for all impaired drivers.
Read Freeing up police and courts to make Alberta safer for more information.
Additional resources:
There are several factors that can affect your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) including:
Some people can be impaired even after consuming a small amount of alcohol. It is important that you assess your ability to drive regardless of how much you consume.
Under Alberta’s Traffic Safety Act, the Government of Alberta imposes administrative sanctions for drivers with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) between .05% (50 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood) and .079% (or 79 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood), which is below the legal threshold associated with the Criminal Code of Canada.
Other jurisdictions in Canada impose similar BAC limits. Research on BAC sanctions has indicated that casualty collisions involving alcohol have decreased in jurisdictions with 0.05 BAC limits. (3)
The results of administrative and legal sanctions at 0.05% across Canada and in other countries.
British Columbia (6) – reduced alcohol-related fatalities by 40%
Prince Edward Island – reduced alcohol involvement in fatal crashes from 64% to 36%
Newfoundland and Labrador – reduced alcohol involvement in fatal crashes from 47% to 27%
Belgium – reduced fatalities by 10% in the first year and by a further 11% in the next year
France (5) – reduced alcohol-related fatalities by 36%
Australia (2, 4)
Typical effects:
Predictable effects on driving:
Typical effects:
Predictable effects on driving:
Typical effects:
Predictable effects on driving:
Typical effects:
Predictable effects on driving:
Typical effects:
Predictable effects on driving:
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The risk of a being in a collision increases with a BAC of 0.05%.
A 2010 Department for Transport (United Kingdom) report found that drivers with a BAC above zero have an increased risk fo being killed in a crash compared to drivers with a BAC of zero.
This risk also increases as the BAC increases.
Driver’s BAC range | Increased fatality risk factor compared to drivers with zero BAC |
---|---|
0.02% to 0.05% | Three times greater risk |
0.05% to 0.08% | Six times greater risk |
0.08% to 0.10% | Eleven times greater risk |
The majority of studies examined in one comprehensive literature review report significant impairment and effects on driving ability by 0.05% (1). Impairments were seen in several skill areas, including attention, tracking, perception, psychomotor skills and reaction time.
As shown above, the risk of dying in a collision increases if the driver has been drinking.
Similarly, the risk that a driver will be involved in a crash also increases if they had been drinking. Because most people’s driving performance is impaired at 0.05%, the probability of being involved in a collision increases by 100% in most cases (2).
Sanctions at 0.05% BAC would not interfere with drinking socially, but may discourage excessive consumption (3).
In Alberta, over 5 years, from 2012 to 2016, collisions involving drinking drivers:
In 2016 alone, 57 people were killed and 916 injured in alcohol-related collisions.
Investigating police officers report:
As the severity of the collision increases, so does the likelihood that the collision involved a drinking driver.
On average in Alberta, one in 6 drivers involved in fatal collisions had been drinking prior to the collision (2012 to 2016). This compares to an average of about one in 32 drivers involved in injury collisions.
Males between 18 and 21 years of age are most likely to have been drinking before a collision.
Casualty collisions consist of both fatal and injury collisions. The highest number of casualty collisions involving alcohol occur from May to October.
Most casualty collisions involving alcohol occur on the weekends.
The most likely time for these collisions is between 11 pm and 3 am.
Drinking and driving collisions are often associated with long weekends.
Over the last 5 years, there have been 34,185 criminal convictions for impaired driving in Alberta (April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2018).
See the complete list of Alberta traffic collision statistics.
Connect with the Office of Traffic Safety:
Hours: 8:15 am to 12:00 pm, and 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm (open Monday to Friday, closed statutory holidays)
Phone: 780-427-8901
Toll free: 310-0000 before the phone number (in Alberta)
Email: [email protected]
Address:
Main Floor, Twin Atria Building
Room 109, 4999 98 Avenue NW
Edmonton, Alberta T6B 2X3
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