Although the rainy weather may have kept many would-be partiers at home this weekend, there were several deaths on capital region roads over the holiday.
One of those deaths was just to the east in Fort Saskatchewan on Friday night, leaving a 49-year-old woman dead and a 47-year-old man facing charges of impaired driving causing death. Police say speed and drug-use were factors in that collision.
In Strathcona County, a cyclist was killed after being struck by a car. The driver of the car was charged with failing to provide a breath sample and dangerous driving causing death.
Despite the trouble elsewhere, Morinville RCMP Cpl. Clint Gulash said the town and surrounding county saw very little action.
“It was fairly quiet,” he said. “We were out targeting impaired drivers on the weekend and didn’t get any, which is a good sign.”
He suggested the rainy weather may have had an impact in more ways than one: it may have motivated more people to stay off the roads, but it also makes it more difficult to spot potential impaired drivers.
“When things are clear, nice and sunny and a guy is wobbling in his lane, (impaired driving) is much more apparent than in the rain when people are driving,” Gulash said. “It can be tough to see that poor driving pattern in the rain.”
While no impaired-driving charges is a good sign, he emphasized this does not mean that impaired driving isn’t a problem in Morinville as much as it is elsewhere.
Gulash said despite no charges laid over the weekend, charges were laid early last week in the detachment area for impaired driving by drug, specifically prescription drugs.
Those kinds of charges can tend to be more difficult for police; with alcohol there are scientifically proven methods to determine blood alcohol content and it is fairly routine. In the case of drugs, however, a drug recognition expert must be called to determine if there are indications of impairment before charges can be laid.
A third type of impairment that’s less recognized among the general public but can nonetheless be deadly is simply being tired.
“We get deaths that way too, if people fall asleep then cross the centre line,” Gulash said.
St. Albert RCMP could not be reached by press time for comment on traffic enforcement in the city over the weekend.
