SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Northerners convicted of impaired driving can get back on the road sooner by enrolling in the territory’s new alcohol ignition interlock program.
The GNWT Department of Transportation introduced the Alcohol Ignition Interlock program this month. The program allows drivers convicted of impaired driving to get back on the road sooner by requiring them to blow into an interlock system before travelling. If the driver's blood alcohol reading is 0.03 or above the car won't start. - photo courtesy of the Department of Transportation
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Participants of the voluntary program have to fit their vehicle with a device that requires the driver to provide a breath sample. If the person’s blood alcohol concentration registers at 0.03 or above the vehicle won’t start.
Similar programs have shown to reduce driving impaired offences by between 50 and 90 per cent while the interlock is installed.
Earl Blacklock, spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, said the program is meant to give residents a chance to regain their driving privileges but in a controlled environment.
It also brings the territory on par with the Yukon and all provinces, he added.
"What was happening was people would have the ability to enter into the interlock program in another jurisdiction and then we would have that person hired by somebody in the Northwest Territories and have to turn it down because we didn't have a comparable program,” said Blacklock. “It was just a question of jurisdictional fairness."
To join the program, which costs about $125 a month, residents have to first complete a mandatory minimum driving prohibition. For a first conviction the prohibition would be three months, on second conviction it would be six months and any convictions after that it would be a year.
Also, applicants can’t have any outstanding fines or be serving a driver’s license suspension, prohibition or disqualification other than for impaired driving.
Andrew Murie, CEO of MADD Canada, said he is pleased to hear the NWT is offering the ignition interlock program. The best interlock programs, Murie added, are mandatory, require participation for a year minimum and continue until there are no program failures within a certain number of months.
The NWT program is voluntary but participants can’t pass if they commit any program violations within three months of their exit date.
Still, Murie said he expects the program will help residents learn to separate their drinking from their driving, he added.
Often participants complain, Murie said, because they will wake up after a night of heavy drinking and find their car won’t start.
"Well they still have an elevated blood alcohol level,” he said. “The interlock is working perfectly. It's the individual that has to then basically be strategic when they drink and reduce the amount they drink so they don't have extended periods of an elevated blood alcohol level. So it really deals with those people that have serious problems with alcohol."
