THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Police Service has finished off a busy month of impaired driver enforcement efforts.
Officers arrested roughly 27 impaired drivers through primary response and the 2024 Festive RIDE campaign, which launched on the weekend of Nov. 30 and continued until Dec. 31
The service held its last ride program of the campaign on New Year’s Eve.
Tom Armstrong, a constable with the Thunder Bay Police Service traffic unit, said police saw a significant number of drug-impaired drivers and alcohol-impaired drivers over the course of the campaign.
Of the 27 arrests,16 were impaired by alcohol, eight were impaired by drugs and three refused breath samples.
Over the course of the year, Armstrong said these numbers add up to 91 drivers impaired by drugs and 100 that were a mixture of alcohol and refusal.
Police charged a total of 191 people with impaired driving in 2024.
“The last number of years, we’ve been sitting around that 200 number. So, I think we’re kind of maintaining that same trend. And I think, just worth noting that despite significant priority calls overall for the service, especially this month, we still allocated significant resources to impaired driving enforcement and it yield significant results,” said Armstrong.
These statistics only include incidents on municipal roadways within the city of Thunder Bay and the municipality of Oliver Paipoonge.
There were nearly as many drug-related charges as alcohol related charges, a trend Armstrong said is concerning. “We’re really looking at ramping up those enforcement efforts for drug-impaired drivers as well.”
Armstrong said police also had a significant number of other noteworthy driving incidents over the month.
“We saw a wide variety of offences, a wide variety of kind of concerning trends and it was a busy month overall,” he said.
Incidents were particularly problematic for youth and young drivers.
“That was something I think we saw a significant trend this month that’s a little bit different than in years past,” said Armstrong.
“Typically, it’s a wide range of drivers’ ages. This one we had a significant number of both young drivers and novice drivers... Two of the drivers arrested on New Year’s Eve were G2 drivers. I think one was unlicensed. The another one was prohibited. It’s just, I mean, these people drive around with no license, with court prohibitions, or they’re novice drivers. That was a real concerning one.”
He said the police also had a few very high-speed related incidents with novice drivers, including one involving stunt drivers on Memorial Avenue a couple of weeks ago and an impaired G2 driver doing 120 km/hour in the 50 km/hour zone on North Cumberland Street on New Year’s Eve.
“I mean I feel like a broken record, right?," said Armstrong.
“The messaging’s out there. People know there are more alternatives than ever. We saw more U-ride drivers than ever. There’s plenty of options. people just make that choice and we can’t understand why… And I don’t know why people don’t get the message. People need to realize the consequences of this.”
He added the other thing the police saw was the number of sober licensed passengers.
“If you’re in a vehicle with somebody speak up, take some ownership for the situation," said Armstrong. "People can’t look out for themselves. We need to essentially do it for them because it seems people aren’t willing to kind of hear the message and learn.”
Although the Festive Ride campaign is over for the year, Armstrong said the police will continue their efforts well into the new year.
