359 people charged with impaired driving in May

Police officers in Saskatchewan were busy last month handing out more than 350 impaired driving charges. Police focused on the offence during the month of May.

In total, there were 359 impaired-driving related offences, including:

• 3 zero Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) offences (applies to new drivers with any BAC level)
• 5 low BAC offences (applies to experienced drivers with a BAC ranging from .04 to .08)
• 351 Criminal Code charges such as high BAC (exceeding .08), impaired driving or refusing a breath test

But despite the increased focus, impaired driving charges for April were almost as high when there were 301. In March, there were 266 charges laid.

In December 2015,police spent the month focusingon impaired driving, 308 charges were laid.

• Impaired driving still number one killer on Sask. roads

Drugand alcohol use a factor in fatalcollisions

According the the most recent numbers from SGI, in 2014there were 1,147 alcoholor drug-related collisions, resulting in 61 deaths and 541 injuries.

Alcohol or drug use was a factor in 43 per centof fatal collisions in Saskatchewan in 2014.

• Catherine McKay pleads guilty to drunk driving causing death after crash killed family of 4
• Saskatchewan drunk driver who killed 3 friends sentenced to four years in prison

Slow progress being made, says minister

A special committee was formed by the provincial government in 2013 in an effort to reduce road fatalities. In June 2014, the laws were changed.

DonMcMorris,the ministerresponsible for SGI, said progress has been made.

"We have seen a 13 per cent reduction in the first full year of the changes we've made,roughlyabout 18 fewerfatalitiesrelatedto alcohol. We expect these changes to produce results, positive results as we move forward,"McMorris said.

"We're going in the right direction but certainly, us, like every other province, still have some whohaven't heard the message or choose to ignore it. We need to work on those numbers."