Courts levy huge fines for local drivers

Area drivers have seen increasing penalties in court for driving offenses – especially those involving alcohol or drugs.

Court documents show recent fines and surcharges amounting to thousands of dollars, along with mandated license suspensions, and more people being sentenced to short stays in jail.

The court penalties are on top of government punishments that include immediate 90-day suspensions of a driver’s license and further suspensions that can be levied for life, additional fines and license reinstatement fees, as well as skyrocketing insurance costs.

Brantford long-time defense lawyer Dale Henderson recently said changes to how an impaired driving charge must be proven in court have made it somewhat easier to get convictions and local judges are issuing tougher sentences on the charges.

“There are higher minimum fines now under the legislation,” Henderson said.

“They’ve all gone up, but in Brantford, the judiciary is taking a hard line on impaired.”

Fines mandated by the government often resulted in fines of $1,000 to $2,000 on top of whatever punishment was met out by the Ministry of Transportation.

But, over the last two months in courts in Brantford and Simcoe, several drivers have been jailed and others walked out of court facing extremely high fines.

One man, convicted of 10 driving offenses committed on six different days in 2021 and 2022, racked up more than $8,000 in fines and victim surcharges.

The man was also credited with already serving about 40 days in jail and sent back to jail by Justice Robert Gee for a further 100 days. The jail sentences included another $600 in victim surcharges.

Gee sentenced another 28-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to impaired driving and driving without insurance, to fines totaling $8,250, which have to be paid within a year.

Two other men, one who drove while suspended and another who was drug-impaired, each got fines of about $4,000.

And in Simcoe court recently, Justice Gethin Edward levied a $5,000 fine for impaired operation of a vehicle.

“It’s become easier to prove impaired,” said Henderson, noting the Crown no longer has to prove a person was driving while over the limit as long as an illegal blood-alcohol content is proven within two hours of driving.

“It’s easier to get a conviction so there’s no increase in fighting the charges,” said Henderson.

Along with higher court punishments, those convicted of impaired driving or driving while suspended face additional penalties from the Ministry of Transportation and their insurance companies.

Some of them include having to pay for a mandatory interlock system on a vehicle, paying to go through retraining and paying for any collision damage, since insurance companies consider criminal offenses to be breaching their rules of coverage.

Penalties increase with every conviction; a fourth conviction means a lifetime license revocation with no possibility of reconsideration.

The increased penalties came into play at the end of 2018 when the government gave police new powers and added specific charges about drug impairment.

When the West Region OPP released its Festive RIDE results from the 2022/2023 holidays, of the 278 impaired driving charges laid in 13 detachments, Brant had the fourth highest number of charges and Norfolk the fifth highest.

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