While Ontario has experienced an extremely mild winter this year, the past weekend put much of the province in a deep freeze. In some parts of Ontario temperatures, together with the windchill. dropped to as much as -40 Celsius during the weekend. It was not a good time to be sitting in a car stuck in a ditch.
According to the Owen Sound Police Service, they received a call from a man at 6:40 a.m. yesterday who reported not only was he stuck in a ditch but he had been drinking. Police responded to the scene and found the man about 100 metres from the road, stuck near a rail trail.
Sgt. Sandra Green of the OSPS said, “The driver was unfamiliar with the area and believed he had been travelling on a rural road when he slid off the trail and became stuck.”
Police found the man had been drinking. The man, a 55-year-old from Scarborough whose name has not been released, was arrested and charged with one count of impaired care and control and one count of having care and control of a motor vehicle while having in excess of 80 milligrams of alcohol in every 100 millilitres of blood.
Under Canadian law, impaired care and control and over 80 care and control carry the same penalties as the equivalent driving offences do. Care and control is defined as when an accused performs an act or a series of acts that involves the use of the vehicle, its fittings or equipment, that could set the car in motion and result in what the drinking and driving offences are designed to prevent. It usually involves the driver sitting behind the wheel with the keys in the ignition.
The 55-year-old was released on a Promise to Appear and is scheduled to appear in an Owen Sound courtroom on Feb. 25.
