Essex County OPP wraps up Festive RIDE campaign

ESSEX COUNTY – The Essex County Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) concluded its annual Festive RIDE campaign on January 2, having charged 17 drivers with impaired driving.

Over the 46-day campaign, OPP officers worked 24/7, conducting 74 RIDE events across Essex County. Over and above the charges, officers issued 10 Warn Range suspensions to drivers whose roadside breath test registered 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood.

Provincially, the OPP conducted 8,370 RIDE events and charged 655 drivers with impaired driving. Over and above the charges, officers issued 236 Warn Range suspensions to drivers whose roadside breath test registered a Blood Alcohol Concentration of between .05 and .08.

Citizens made 3,147 calls to police across the province to report suspected impaired drivers and encouraged to continue reporting suspected impaired drivers to police. Doing so could have saved a life.

The OPP Festive RIDE Campaign ran from November 18, 2021, to January 2, 2022.