Impaired driving still a concern in eastern Ontario, police say
Posted Jul 17, 2025 01:29:42 PM.
Last Updated Jul 17, 2025 01:29:50 PM.
Police are concerned about how many people are impaired and get behind the wheel in the eastern part of Ontario.
Officials said that there has been a slight decrease in the number of impaired drivers in the region over the last year. According to officials, there have been 575 impaired driving incidents in the first half of this year, which is down from the same period in 2024.
“One impaired driver is one too many. We know impaired driving can have a deadly impact, affecting not only that driver, but potentially others on the roads and highways, innocent families,” Inspector Josh Kingsley, OPP East Region Traffic & Marine Manager, said.
There have been 22 fatal crashes on roadways around the nation’s capital, resulting in 25 people killed. In those statistics, OPP share that impaired driving played a role in five of those deaths.
Just last month, police from the Upper Ottawa Valley detachment say that several drivers were caught between May 23 and 30, several of which happened in the middle of the day.
The first report came to police at 11:00 a.m. on May 23. There was a traffic complaint on Highway 17, and officers found the vehicle and transported the driver to the detachment for more testing.
Richard Kohli, 59, of Niagara Falls, is facing impaired operation offences.
The next day, around 11:30 a.m., OPP got a complaint for an “erratic driver.” The vehicle was said to be in a parking lot of a business on Pembroke Street East.
There, police found Rejean Levesque, 77, from the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation. They were charged with failure to provide a sample.
