As we head into the last long weekend of summer it is important to remind our youths of the dangers of impaired driving.
According to data from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), road collisions are the leading causes of deaths among teenagers aged 16 to 25 and alcohol and drug impairment is a leading factor in 55 per cent of those crashes.
“Young and novice drivers usually lack both driving and drinking experience. They tend to be risk takers and are less cautious than their older counterparts,” states the MADD Alberta website.
According to MADD, alcohol impacts hand-eye coordination, the ability to focus, the ability to see clearly, judgment, and the ability to recognize road dangers and hazardous conditions.
Cannabis also impacts a person’s ability to drive. The effects cannabis has on driving, according to MADD, include a shorter attention span, an altered perception of time and distances, and slowed reaction time to sudden events in traffic.
“A 2012 study by researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax found that smoking cannabis three hours before driving nearly doubled a driver’s risk of having a motor vehicle crash,” the website states.
Driving skills are even further degraded when cannabis and alcohol are combined.
The MADD website lists some characteristics of the use of alcohol among young drivers.
- The age group with the highest fatality and serious injury rate from impaired drivers is 19, while 16-year-olds have the smallest proportion of fatality and serious injuries due to impaired driving.
- Male drunk drivers make up 87 per cent of those killed in collisions and 89 per cent of impaired drivers who are seriously injured are male.
- Summer is the most fatal time for young, impaired drivers, with 32.4 per cent of drunk teens killed and 40.8 per cent of drunk teens seriously injured during the summer months. Those numbers drop to eight per cent and 11.4 per cent respectively during the winter months.
- Weekends and evenings are the most fatal and injurious time for impaired teen drivers.
- Impaired teens are more likely to be involved in single-vehicle collisions, however, when it comes to alcohol-related multiple vehicle collisions, around 66 per cent of the time the fatally injured teen was impaired.
“By the time a driver reaches a blood alcohol content of .10 per cent, he or she is 51 times more likely than a non-drinking driver to be involved in a fatal crash,” stated the MADD website.
The Alberta government also has stats on impaired driving in young drivers. Data from the province shows the total number of drunk drivers involved in casualty collisions in the province in 2019 under the age of 24 was 59.
Many provinces and territories have graduated driver licensing (GDL) programs for youth drivers. These programs are meant to limit the risks — including a zero-blood alcohol (BAC) requirement and limits on night-time driving — for young drivers while still allowing them to practice driving.
In Alberta, only those with a learner's licence (class 7) are not permitted to drive between midnight and 5 a.m., however, anyone who holds a GDL is required to have zero blood alcohol and drug levels while driving.
MADD recommends an extension to zero BAC requirements to the age of 21.
“Even in the absence of alcohol, [young drivers] are at greater risk of crash than older, more experienced drivers. When alcohol is added, young drivers are at far greater risk of death than their older driving counterparts with comparable BACS,” stated the website.
