Using social media to share the locations of checkstops demonstrates a blatant lack of respect for public safety.
Checkstops are aimed at removing impaired drivers from roadways, while educating the public on the effects of drinking and driving.
Judging by the high number of deaths resulting from impaired driving coupled with the prevalence of impaired driving on Alberta roadways, this awareness is still very much needed.
Between 2006 and 2010, 569 Albertans lost their lives in alcohol-related collisions. In 2010 alone, 96 Albertans died while another 1,384 suffered injuries. Statistics show that roughly 20 per cent of drivers in fatal collisions consumed alcohol prior to the collision.
Most people would agree that impaired drivers don’t belong on the road and ought to be in a prison cell or a treatment facility.
Yet some of these same people, without hesitation, use social media as a means to give drunk drivers an escape route for their offence.
Earlier this month, an alleged ex-employee of an Edmonton bar tweeted the location of a nearby checkstop from the establishment’s public Twitter account.
Critics lambasted the business – which makes a living off people consuming alcohol – for tweeting the information, while supporters defended the bar, saying the tweet encouraged motorists using that route to stay sober.
While tweeting a checkstop might help a sober motorist avoid getting stuck behind a string of traffic, it also puts these motorists in harm’s way.
Individuals are well within their rights to tweet checkstop locations, but before doing so, they should consider the repercussions. Putting these locations into the Twittersphere could force impaired drivers off those routes, away from waiting law enforcement, and into neighbourhoods where the results could be catastrophic.
St. Albert recently ranked eighth of ten cities for most impaired driving charges in Maclean’s annual survey of Canada’s Most Dangerous Cities. St. Albert had 471.9 charges per 100,000 people, based on 2011 data.
This doesn’t necessarily point to higher numbers of impaired driving in St. Albert compared to other cities in Canada. But it does raise the question of why so many people continue to consume alcohol before getting behind the wheel.
People who choose to drive while impaired deserve to face the court of law and court of public opinion. They deserve to be arrested, charged, tried and punished.
They do not, however, deserve to be involved in a collision that puts their life and the lives of others at risk.
By providing these offenders with an alternative route where they will not necessarily be subjected to a roadside breathalyser, they could, at minimum, get away with their crime.
With holiday celebrations in full swing and New Year’s celebrations just around the corner, people need to take responsibility for their actions and exercise social responsibility.
This means people need to refrain from consuming alcohol prior to driving, but also means that users of social media sites need to refrain from posting checkstop locations.
While impaired driving is a problem that law enforcement agencies have been trying to combat for decades, the complications social media creates are relatively new.
Tweeting a checkstop location, in reality, helps no one. It doesn’t help police take impaired drivers off the road, it doesn’t help the potential victims of impaired-driving related collisions and it doesn’t help the impaired driver.
