Thirty-five percent of Manitobans admitted to driving after they had been drinking, according to a new CAA study.
The numbers aren’t comforting, considering it’s not hard to miss out on the many educational campaigns warning of the dangers to drinking and driving.
CAA’s Traffic Safety Culture survey found that the drivers questioned had driven in the last 12 months when they believed they were at or over the legal limit. Of the 20 percent, six percent said they did it “just once” and 14 percent answered “rarely” when they thought they were close to or over the legal limit.
Ninety-eight percent of Manitobans say it is socially unacceptable for a driver to get behind the wheel when they have had too much to drink.
“With everything we know and have seen about what can happen when you drink and drive, people are still taking chances,” said Liz Peters of CAA Manitoba. “People tell us they know it’s unacceptable to drink and drive, but these poll results tell us their actions contradict what people believe to be acceptable.”
The results come at the same time both Winnipeg police and RCMP are in the midst of their annual Holiday Check Stop Programs to catch impaired drivers behind the wheel. As of last week, RCMP had arrested eight drivers throughout the province for impaired driving, while also issuing a number of 24 hour licence suspensions. Locally, Winnipeg police have arrested about a dozen individuals on similar charges.
The CAA study surveyed 2,000 Canadians, including 400 from Manitoba.
