If you live in Toronto, you must have heard about impaired driving. It is a term commonly used to refer to an offence of driving under the influence(drugs, alcohol or both). According to impaired driving lawyer Toronto at Ernst Ashurov, impaired driving is the leading cause of deaths and injuries on roads.
It is a punishable criminal offence that can see you get life imprisonment. It can also result in the suspension of your driver’s licence. According to impaired driving lawyer Toronto, there are certain levels of drugs or alcohol that shouldn’t be found in your blood while driving. If these levels exceed certain levels, you can be arrested for an impaired driving offence and be charged in a court of law.
- Approved Instrument Demands
If police are convinced beyond reasonable doubts that you have committed an impaired driving offence as stipulated in section 253, they have a right to demand that you provide breath samples into an approved instrument. The results collected can be produced as evidence during the proceedings of the trial.
- Blood Samples
Sometimes the person might get tragically injured and is unable to provide breath samples. In this case, police can ask for blood samples, of course, under the direction of a medical practitioner. The analysis should be performed by the same medical practitioner who obtains the samples.
- Approved Screening Devices
According to impaired driving lawyer Toronto, if the police is convinced that the person was driving under the influence within the past two hours, he should demand suitable samples which should be taken using the approved screening device.
The device is set to detect any drug or alcohol amount that goes past the accepted level. If the person has a BAC of more than 0.1 %, it displays fail. If the BAC is between 0.05-0.1percent, it cautions him.
These testing processes are usually carried out by traffic police at the roadside.
- Compliance Refusal
If the police demands for breath samples, the impaired driving lawyer Toronto says it is a criminal offence to refuse the request and you can be charged for that unless you have a reasonable excuse. The penalties are the same as penalties for driving under the influence.
- Sentencing
If you are convicted for an impaired driving offence (which encompasses refusing to comply with police demands), you face an automatic Toronto-wide driving prohibition, and you can either be fined or sentenced in jail with the possibility of probation.
The minimum sentences include;
- If it is your first impaired driving offence, you get a fine of $1000 and 1-year driving prohibition in Toronto.
- If it is your second time you are committing an impaired driving offence, you get 1-month of a jail sentence and 2-years driving prohibition in Toronto.
- If it is your third time or subsequent offence, you get 3-months of a jail sentence and 3-years of driving prohibition in Toronto.