Citation

Muehlberger C. J. Crim. Law Criminol. 1948; 39(3): 411-416.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1948, Northwestern University School of Law)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In Canada there is the supposed slogan of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that they are out to "get their man." Be it as it may be, one method by which it cannot be accomplished is the recommendation by the Committee on Tests for Intoxication of the National Safety Council of the United States that "if there was. . . fifteen-hundredths percent or more by weight of alcohol in the defendant's blood, it shall be presumed that the defendant was under the influence of intoxicating liquor." The first attempt in Canada to make use of the alcohol content of the blood, independent of all other evidence, failed. In ren- dering the judgment in this case (Weir v. Dickson) the Hon. Mr. Justice McDougall, put it thus: "The Court does not propose to follow the expert witnesses into the intricacies of the relative merits of blood for testing purposes.... To do so would be long and could serve no useful purpose. It will be sufficient to say that while the alcohol content of the blood may usefully be referred to as constituting some proof of intoxication in itself is not conclusive of the fact." This case eventually reached the Supreme Court of Canada, where the judgment of the trial court was upheld. The need of laboratory tests for the detection of drunkenness hardly requires comment. The incidence of traffic accidents is on the increase; the extent to which alcoholic intoxication is a contributing factor is on the increase (1.2.3.4.5.6.7.) and a driver of a motor vehicle or a pedestrian who is under the influence of alcohol is a menace to others as well as to himself which no improvement of motor car equipment and which no skill of sober users of the road are capable of combatting.

I. Alcohol and Motor Car Accidents. It is not necessary to acquaint this audience with the increasing incidence of traffic accidents and the extent to which alcoholic intoxication is a contributing factor; nor to the relationship between alcoholic intoxication and crime. There is no reason to believe that the finding in an investigation (1) in 1937 that 7 per cent of all drivers and 11 per cent of all pedestrians who had been involved in accidents had been drinking does not apply to the present. In the following year, a somewhat similar study showed that both incidences had increased (2). The extent to which drivers of motor-cars who had been drinking are more liable to be in- volved in accidents than others is suggested from the finding in another investigation that 47 per cent of the drivers so in- volved had appreciable amounts of alcohol in their bloods, com- pared with 12 per cent only of a group of drivers selected at random who had not been involved in accidents (3). In another study, 37.3 per cent of 314 pedestrians who had been killed in traffic accidents had alcohol in their bloods (4). In Europe the experiences have been essentially the same. In one investiga- tion (5), of a total of 2,530 persons involved in accidents, 9.9 per cent had some alcohol in the blood, fitting in with the above- mentioned values of 7 and 11 per cent respectively. In another investigation, it ivas found that 40 per cent of persons injured in traffic accidents had more or less alcohol in the blood (6). That the presence of alcohol in the body increases the speed of motor-car driving, statistically at least, seems to be an ex- perimental fact (7). A driver of a motor vehicle or a pedestrian, who is under the influence of alcohol, is thus a menace to others as well as to himself which no improvement of motor-car equip- ment and which no skill of sober users of the road are capable of combatting. To some extent this is recognized in law....

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol39/iss3/14

Keywords: Ethanol impaired driving

Language: en