I was a drunk for the cops

It’s a pretty simple message. You’ve heard it before. You’ll hear it again.

Don’t drink and drive.

And yet, people still do it.

In 2009, eight people were killed in Toronto in alcohol-related collisions, the same as in 2008.

According to Toronto’s holiday RIDE stats, 23 people were charged with impaired driving during police spot checks over 36 days while 76 people were given 90-day suspensions.  

Just north of the city, York Region officers arrested one guy after he was found passed out behind the wheel in a live lane of traffic.

Passed out.

In traffic.

But driving when really wasted is one thing. What about tipsy? Or buzzed? When they say, “Don’t drink and drive”, do they mean don’t have a drink, or two or 10?

I recently had a pretty strange day on the job.

I was invited to York Region’s 4 District station to participate in a field sobriety testing training course for police officers.

As a volunteer, I drank.

Rum.

At 10 in the morning.

Along with volunteers from the 911 call centre, I drank in the basement of the police station under the watchful eye of Constable-turned-bartender for the day Roman Santos.

He carefully monitored our “dosage”, as he called it, serving up drinks in red plastic cups as we chatted, played games and drank.

It wasn’t unlike a house party or restaurant setting.

Only we were served carefully measured drinks, escorted to the washroom and watched closely.

After three drinks, an officer came by to check on me. First, there was a pulse check and a blood pressure check and then the breathalyzer.

At this point, I was feelin’ happy.

You know, that feeling. Like you stand up, and you just feel … like you’ve had a drink. Not drunk. Not liquor-coursing-through-your-veins wasted. Just feeling a little happy.

I blew a 0.062.

Blood alcohol concentration — or BAC — measures the amount of alcohol in the blood. The legal limit for BAC is 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millitres of blood: 0.08. It’s a criminal offence to drive if your BAC is above 0.08.

An impaired charge, Santos explains, means your BAC level affects your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle.

In Ontario, police can now suspend a driver’s licence up to three days if the driver is in the warn range: that is, their BAC is between 0.05 and 0.08.

That means at 0.062 I wasn’t over the legal limit but I would have received a three-day suspension had I blown that in a roadside test.

Had I not been with a roomful of cops, would I have driven?

The truth? Maybe. I think I’d only had three drinks in about two hours.

I wasn’t told what I blew. Our bartender kept that a secret (until the next day).

We began to discuss who’d drive at that point, and who wouldn’t.

One volunteer said she would for sure. Another said he’d likely have another few drinks before he’d hand over his keys. One said she’d
have five drinks before getting in a cab.

“There’s that idea that unless I’m falling down drunk, it’s okay to drive,” Santos said. “As a traffic officer who’s seen firsthand some of the fatalies that have occurred due to impaired driving, the attitude does disturb me.

“At least in this case, it’s an eye-opener. It can change those people’s perceptions. So it is useful to people. They say they’d drive and I tell them (what they blew).”

Alcohol affects the body and brain in many ways, Santos said.