Impaired Driving (Criminal)
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Changes to the Impaired Driving Code
In December 2020, the Alberta Government made some very important changes to how they decided to handle impaired driving allegations. If a driver does not have prior convictions for impaired driving and there was no accident or any significant aggravating factors, police typically will not charge the driver criminally, but rather will issue a Notice of Administrative Penalty (NAP) only.
Police retain the discretion to both charge criminally for impaired driving and to issue a Notice of Administrative Penalty which engages the SafeRoads regime. Sometimes our clients aren’t clear on whether or not they are actually being charged criminally. This is particularly the case where, at the time that they were interacting with the police, they may have been told they were under arrest and even handcuffed. Those, however, are not the determining factors. If the only paperwork you received included a Notice of Administrative Penalty, and one or two Seizure Notices, you are likely not being charged criminally. There is an allegation of alcohol or drug related driving, but the officer chose only to proceed administratively.
If, on the other hand, in addition to the NAP, you also received a document such as a Promise to Appear, Appearance notice, Recognizance or an Undertaking that has a court date listed, that means that you are likely facing criminal charges. In this situation, you will need to be fighting on two fronts. If you deal with only the administrative side or only the criminal side, you will end up suspended and facing fines.
If you received a Notice of Administrative Penalty and one of the documents noted above with a court date on it, the criminal charge may include impaired driving, but could also be for a different offence which the officers are alleging arose at the same time such as: obstruction, dangerous driving, flight from police, theft of a motor vehicle, assault against a police officer etc.
If You Were Involved in Accident
For the clients who were involved in a significant accident, there may be still be confusion about whether or not they are being charged criminally.
If you were involved in an accident where you would have thought that you were going to be charged, but you did not get any of the paperwork associated with a court date, the explanation may be that police are still working on their investigation. If samples of blood were taken, it can take weeks and sometimes months before the results of the analysis are received. To be on the safe side, it would be a good idea for you to get legal advice even when you are not, at present, facing charges but you think they may be forthcoming.
Impaired causing bodily harm and impaired causing death are very serious criminal charges which normally attract long periods of jail, even for those who have no criminal record. It is imperative to seek legal assistance from very seasoned lawyers in this area as soon as possible when charged with alcohol or drug related impaired driving involving bodily harm or death.
Between the criminal and administrative matters, the administrative file (which is the NAP for an IRS) is the most pressing that you will need to address. You have only seven days to respond in order to initiate an appeal. When you look at the documents on the criminal side, typically the first court date is roughly six weeks after the initial stop. By that time, you will already have received the decision on the SafeRoads file. However, as the criminal file is the one where a jail sentence is a real possibility, you need to ensure you have strong representation for the proceedings ahead.
The lawyers at Gunn Law Group have years of experience handling both criminal and administrative impaired driving cases. When the file involves an accident where bodily harm or death ensued, a very sensitive approach is required. Our lawyers will review the disclosure very carefully, highlighting the possible defences that you can raise in court. We also understand that on one side of the file are families grieving, and on the side of the file where we stand with our clients is fear, pain, and often overwhelming feelings of remorse. We will help you to get through this traumatic experience in the best legal position possible.
