B.C. drivers who have their licences suspended under new drunk-driving prohibitions can't return to the road while they appeal their penalties.
The proposed changes, part of the hefty new prohibitions introduced last week, mean people will no longer keep their driver's licences if they embark on the 21-day appeal process to contest their punishment.
Government said the legislation, which has yet to pass in the legislature, will save lives because it keeps allegedly impaired drivers off the road virtually from the moment they are pulled over by police.
But critics slammed the new rules as presuming everyone is guilty until they fight to prove their innocence.
Even if an appeal is successful through the 21-day process -- say, because a blood-alcohol reader malfunctioned or the police officer made a mistake -- the driver would have lost his or her licence for that time, with no way to reverse the penalty.
The changes effectively make the police officer at the roadside "the court of last resort," said Robert Holmes, president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
"It raises a whole host of concerns," Holmes said.
"The discussion usually focuses on the assumption that anybody stopped by a police officer and charged with something or given a prohibition must be guilty of something.
"Well, the fact of the matter is, we are giving the police the power to do things that will deprive people of their rights and their liberties without allowing for any process to challenge that or any recourse against that. And we're going to do that with the knowledge that, like anybody else in the world, the police do make mistakes and they don't always get it right."
The new rules give police discretion to slap first-time offenders with a 90-day driving ban and $500 fine if they fail a roadside sobriety test. The penalties are in addition to any charges under the Criminal Code.
A person can appeal to the Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles within seven days, and the office is obliged to rule on the appeal within 21 days. If successful, it could refund a person's impound and administration fees.
Under current laws, a driver with a 90-day suspension can drive during that appeal.
The government is proposing to reverse that rule to save lives, superintendent Steve Martin said.
"Literally, we've had people kill [other] people while driving drunk and they've been driving again 24 hours later," Martin said. There's also a 37 per cent recidivism rate for 24-hour license suspensions, which is a "complete program failure."
"One of the things that we're trying to do is to provide immediate consequences," he said.
"It's behaviour intervention 101. To change behaviour, the consequences have to be clear, and they have to be swift and they have to be significant enough to be a deterrent," Martin said. "And we know the current system is not working because the prevalence of impaired riving is increasing."
But critics say the new measures go too far.
People who blow a "warn" -- indicating a blood-alcohol level between .05 and .08 per cent -- can face suspensions of three, seven or 30 days.
But because it takes 21 days to decide the fate of a three- or seven-day suspension, and the license is revoked during that time, then there is actually "no appeal in practical terms," Holmes said.
The only recourse available for drivers dissatisfied with the process is to take the province to B.C. Supreme Court -- a move that could take more than a year and cost thousands in legal fees.
B.C. Solicitor General Mike de Jong said the impaired-driving changes are fair, even if the appeal process has changed. The new rules have built-in safeguards, he said, such as the ability for a driver to ask for a second roadside breath test using a different machine.
