BCTV News Hour Access - Drunk Drivers 1976

1976 · Margit Nance for BCTV

An investigative news segment for BCTV News Hour weekend series, Community Access with Margit Nance, broadcast during the weekend news hour show on September 26, 1976. The piece explores drunk driving in Vancouver, British Columbia. Explores how the Vancouver Police Department define impaired driving and why so, use of roadside suspensions for drivers not legally impaired by blowing 0.08% blood alcohol level or more. Discussion of public attitudes to drunk driving as “not really a crime,” a socially acceptable activity despite costs to taxpayers, automobile accidents, and legal costs, fines, prison sentences, and criminal record consequences for offenders. Changes to the Criminal Code in May 1976 to more substantially punish those convicted for first, second, or third offences. Shot in Gastown neighborhood of Vancouver, Vancouver Police Department detachment where a breathalyzer test is administered, and at Alouette River Correctional Unit in Maple Ridge, BC (today the Alouette Correctional Facility for Women). Interviewed or featured in the piece: Constable Roger Jacobsen, Vancouver Police Department; Jim (James) Wiltshire, impaired driver; Keith Libby, defense lawyer; Ken Sherman, convicted of impaired driving; Bill Forbes and Jim Heron, Senior Correctional Officers. Note: The man seen staggering to his car in the video, Jim Wiltshire, was a BCTV employee asked by the production staff to get drunk in Pharoah’s Night Club at the corner of Water Street and Cordova Street, then walk to his car, get in, and drive away while VPD officers were on hand for the shoot and expected to intervene. Film Eric Cable, editor Bert Darbyshire, production assistant Roberta Meilleur, director Terry Cochrane, producer Margit Nance. BCTV Access Aired September 26, 1976 21min. 11sec.