"Almost half the impaireds were caught because of accidents," said Const. Sean Chiddenton.

One of the drivers was caught because he rear-ended a police car on 50th Avenue two days after Christmas. RCMP also issued three 24-hour driving suspensions in December.

Still, Chiddenton said "there are a lot more (drunk drivers) out there than we're getting. We don't have the resources to go after them, but we're working on it."

He said the RCMP will be doing more checks throughout 2003, and not just during holidays.

"We want to focus on specific areas of town and specific times when we're getting the most impaireds."

The crucial time is after bars close on weekends, he said.

But the RCMP won't be getting more resources. "It's more of a strategy to work with what we have," he said.

National Road Safety Vision 2010 is a new RCMP initiative.

"The mission is to have the safest roads in the world by 2010."

Along with stopping more cars, the initiative involves more education for members.

Police will continue to allow those fined with not wearing seat belts the option of attending a lecture. After listening to the lecture about seat belt safety, police take the ticket back, he said.