Winter Impaired Driving Campaign Wrap-Up: BC Highway Patrol takes 267 impaired drivers off BC roads in one month

BC Highway Patrol

2025-01-16 08:00 PST

Every day in December 2024, BC Highway Patrol took an average of 8.61 impaired drivers off the road. That’s an impaired driver caught every three hours for 31 days.

Mounties with BC Highway Patrol at a checkstop on northern Vancouver Islan

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The Winter Impaired Driving Campaign clearly shows that education is not enough for people who choose to drive while impaired, says Superintendent Mike Coyle, Acting Officer in Charge of BC Highway Patrol. Nobody is surprised when they fail a roadside screening device and their vehicle is towed. Enforcement is a necessary follow-up to education.

Here are the December 2024 prohibitions in BC Highway Patrol’s five regions:

North (100 Mile House and north, excluding Clearwater); 52 prohibitions.
South East Central (including Vernon, Kelowna, Kamloops and Clearwater); 81 prohibitions.
Lower Mainland (including Pemberton to Hope); 45 prohibitions.
South East Kootenay (including Revelstoke, Salmon Arm, Grand Forks, east to Alberta); 36 prohibitions.
Vancouver Island; 53 prohibitions.

Note that some regions, particularly Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, have large municipal and RCMP traffic enforcement units that are not part of BC Highway Patrol data.

The annual Winter Impaired Driving Campaign is a province-wide initiative in support of National Impaired Driving Prevention Month that features enhanced enforcement through check stops and patrols.

The Winter Impaired Driving Campaign is the second busiest time of year for impaired driving enforcement. The busiest time of year is the Summer Impaired Driving Campaign which runs from June to August.

A rainy, winter BC Highway Patrol checkstop in Central BC