Every once in awhile you come across something that you think no one else will ever experience as a police officer, one of those "well doesn't that beat all" stories. Of course, you'd be wrong. But it still makes a good story.
Around 2:00 am one morning I was driving down the highway near a small Saskatchewan town. Taillights in the distance made me accelerate to catch up. I didn't need to. The older pickup truck was only doing about 40 kms an hour and was wandering in its lane. I followed a short distance and then pulled the truck over. It took longer than normal to stop, and when it did it was in the middle of the lane.
Now these are all pretty classic driving evidence for impaired driving, but when I walked up to the car I was surprised to see that although the four or five passengers were drunk, the driver was stone cold sober. She was however only about 10 or 11 years old. Her father, seated beside her in the truck, had used her as a "designated driver". She had sat outside the bar in the truck while her parents and some friends drank, her job was to drive them home afterwards.
Now there are a couple of ways of handling this, the classic one would be to contact Social Services and try and get some intervention done on the child's behalf. I took a different tack. I charged the father with impaired care and control, towed the vehicle, drove the drunks home and took the girl to a sober relative.
But the father wasn't driving. How could I charge him? The law recognizes that you might not find an impaired driver in the act of driving. It has a section in the impaired/over .08 laws commonly referred to as Care and Control. Essentially if you have control over the vehicle, and could put it in motion, or control its motion, and you're impaired... you can be charged with impaired care and control of a vehicle. Its classic use is when you find someone passed out behind the wheel, the vehicle running, or the keys in the ignition. Other times would be a drunk stuck in the ditch in his vehicle.
But in this case the father had the control over what his daughter was doing, the driving, seated right beside her, he instructed her, he in essence controlled the vehicle through her. She, being a child, wouldn't be able to resist this person in authority. He had control of the vehicle through his control of her. So I charged him, as far as I know, the only person charged with this manner of care and control.
He was convicted.
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