ROADSIDE TEST LAW AIMED AT IMPAIRED DRIVERS

REGINA -- The provincial government wants to give police more powers to
deal with drivers impaired by drugs.

On Tuesday, the NDP government introduced amendments to the Traffic Safety
Act which establish an immediate 24-hour licence suspension for drivers who
fail a standard field sobriety test (SFST).

That's a battery of roadside tests that see police check for impairment by
making drivers walk and turn or stand on one leg and by checking for
involuntary eye movement.

"This is a way to get at impaired drivers who are obviously under the
influence of drugs," said Maynard Sonntag, the minister responsible for
Saskatchewan Government Insurance, in an interview Tuesday.

"In the past, impaired drivers as a result of usage of drugs . . . they
could have been easy to identify as impaired but it would have been
difficult for (police) to find grounds for them to be charged."

Sonntag said the test, which will supplement the use of breathalyzers, has
to be incorporated into legislation before it can be used in court.
Saskatchewan will be the second jurisdiction, after Manitoba, to make the
SFST part of legislation.

"Some have questioned it but it's been tested in the courts in Manitoba,"
said Sonntag.

Another amendment to the legislation imposes a 15-day driver's licence
suspension after a second .04 blood alcohol count violation within a
five-year period.

Currently a driver with three .04 violations within five years is subject
to a 90-day suspension.

The government wants to pass the legislation during this fall's sitting of
the legislature and have it come into effect in June of 2006.

Sonntag said 53 people were killed and 786 were injured in Saskatchewan
last year in alcohol-related collisions.