The Rural Impaired-Driving Problem. Impaired-driving rates are nearly 3× higher in rural Canada than in urban Canada. Why?
What Prince Edward County’s unfinished search for a dependable ride home can teach every rural community
A resident of Prince Edward County recently posed a question that could have come from almost any tourism county, farming district or small municipality in Canada: if the Ontario Provincial Police are intensifying enforcement against impaired driving, how can the community bring Uber, Lyft or another dependable ride service into the region?
The discussion that followed revealed much more than frustration with the absence of a familiar transportation application. Some residents praised stronger enforcement and argued that weekends, concerts and events at Base31 make additional transportation essential. Others pointed out that local taxis already exist and deserve support, while several questioned whether municipal funding for Uride had delivered the reliable service residents were promised. Hospitality workers finishing late shifts were raised repeatedly, as were the limited hours of seasonal buses, the difficulty of reaching rural homes from fixed bus stops and the financial reality that private ride services may never be fully profitable across a large, sparsely populated municipality.
There were also residents who placed the responsibility entirely on individuals, suggesting that people should arrange a designated driver, call a friend or plan before drinking. That advice is sensible and should remain part of every road-safety message, but it does not resolve the public-policy question. Municipalities across Canada have deliberately encouraged wineries, breweries, restaurants, festivals, wedding venues, concerts and evening hospitality because those activities create employment, attract visitors and generate tax revenue. Police services are then asked to catch impaired drivers when those evenings end, while the transportation system between the licensed establishment and the driver’s home is often left almost entirely to chance.
In a major city, a person who decides not to drive may be able to use a subway, bus, taxi or ride-hailing service within minutes. In a rural county, the closest available driver may be 20 or 30 kilometres away, the local bus may have stopped operating hours earlier, and the passenger’s destination may be on a concession road where the driver is unlikely to find a return fare.
The result is a rural contradiction that deserves attention far beyond Prince Edward County. Governments rightly insist that impaired driving is never acceptable, yet many rural communities have not built a transportation system that makes the safe alternative consistently available. Enforcement and personal responsibility remain indispensable, but neither removes the need for practical transportation planning.
The Rural Risk Is Not an Impression
The rural impaired-driving problem is measurable. Statistics Canada reported that predominantly rural police services recorded an impaired-driving rate of approximately 360 incidents for every 100,000 residents in 2024, compared with roughly 126 incidents per 100,000 in predominantly urban areas. The rural rate was therefore almost three times the urban rate.[1]
The consequences are also disproportionately serious. Statistics Canada found that the rate of impaired driving causing death or bodily harm was approximately four times higher in rural areas than in urban communities. Greater dependence on personal vehicles, longer travel distances, higher-speed roads and limited access to taxis, transit and ride-hailing services were among the rural conditions identified in the analysis.[2]
These figures do not mean that rural residents are inherently less responsible than urban residents. Rural life simply creates a different transportation environment. People frequently travel farther for employment, healthcare, shopping and entertainment, while the alternatives available after drinking are fewer. A city resident may leave a vehicle overnight and take transit home; a rural resident may be many kilometres from home with no bus, taxi or nearby accommodation.
Nationally, police reported 71,602 impaired-driving incidents in 2023, representing a rate of 179 incidents per 100,000 people. Ontario recorded 103 incidents per 100,000, among the lowest provincial rates in Canada, but a provincial average inevitably combines Toronto and other large urban centres with the many smaller communities patrolled by the OPP.[3]
The Ontario Provincial Police conducted more than 438,000 traffic stops in 2024 and continued to run province-wide road-safety campaigns in addition to regular enforcement. During Canada Road Safety Week alone, OPP officers laid 254 impaired-driving charges, while the Thanksgiving weekend’s Operation Impact resulted in another 163 impaired-driving charges.[4]
Those enforcement numbers demonstrate both the seriousness of the problem and the limits of policing as the only response. A RIDE checkpoint may deter some drivers and remove others from the road, but it intervenes after people have already travelled to a location, consumed alcohol or drugs and begun deciding how to return home. Transportation policy works earlier by making it easier for the safe decision to be carried out.
Why Municipal Comparisons Require Caution
Residents naturally want to know which towns or counties have the highest impaired-driving rates, but municipal comparisons can be misleading unless the data are placed in context. A small municipality may record only a modest number of incidents but produce a high rate because its population is small. A tourism community may host far more drivers on summer weekends than its permanent population suggests. A police service conducting frequent checkpoints may identify more impaired drivers than a neighbouring service undertaking less proactive enforcement.
Police-reported statistics therefore measure detected incidents rather than the complete amount of impaired driving occurring in a community. An increase may reflect worsening behaviour, intensified enforcement, greater public reporting or some combination of the three. Statistics Canada and national impaired-driving researchers have repeatedly cautioned that policing practices affect the numbers appearing in official data.[5]
Local reports nevertheless illustrate the continuing scale of the issue. The Smiths Falls Police Service reported checking 785 vehicles through five provincially funded RIDE operations in 2024, in addition to 19 other RIDE programs involving another 1,429 vehicles. Its annual report recorded alcohol-related impaired-driving offences while emphasizing that impaired operation can involve not only cars and trucks but also boats, off-road vehicles and snowmobiles.[6]
LaSalle Police reported a significant change in impaired-driving occurrences over its five-year reporting period, demonstrating why one annual number should never be interpreted without reviewing the underlying data, definitions and enforcement activity.[7] Toronto Police, operating in a very different urban environment, reported 388 RIDE deployments during the 2024 campaign, approximately 35,000 vehicles stopped, 3,400 breath tests administered, 17 arrests and 72 driver suspensions.[8]
These figures cannot be compared as though the municipalities were identical. Smiths Falls, LaSalle, Toronto and Prince Edward County differ in population, geography, road networks, tourism, police deployment and transit availability. The broader lesson is that every municipality should publish consistent local data covering impaired-driving incidents, RIDE operations, roadside tests, suspensions, collisions and transportation alternatives so residents can understand both the problem and the response.
Prince Edward County: The Case Study
Prince Edward County offers a particularly useful example because it combines nearly every feature that makes rural transportation difficult. The municipality covers a large geographic area, contains dispersed villages and rural properties, welcomes substantial seasonal tourism and has developed a destination economy around wineries, breweries, cideries, restaurants, accommodations, weddings, festivals, concerts and cultural events.
That economy requires people to move among locations that may be many kilometres apart. A visitor may stay near Wellington, visit a winery in Hillier, dine in Bloomfield and attend an event in Picton or at Base31. A hospitality employee may work late in one part of the County while living in another. Wedding guests may be accommodated in cottages, inns and short-term rentals spread across several wards.
Unlike an urban entertainment district, these destinations cannot be connected through walking or frequent all-night transit. A limited summer bus running among settlements and Base31 can provide a useful service, but it cannot deliver most passengers to individual rural homes, nor can a fixed route necessarily meet the needs of workers ending shifts after the scheduled service has stopped. Municipal planning documents confirm that Prince Edward County has experimented with seasonal fixed-route additions, including a summer loop serving locations such as Base31, but limited-hour transit and point-to-point rural transportation solve different problems.[9]
The community comments captured that distinction clearly. One resident observed that even when a bus connects the main towns, many passengers must still drive from the bus stop to where they actually live. Another suggested that larger restaurants could cooperate on a late-night bus for employees and remaining customers, while others argued that designated drivers and advance planning should be sufficient.
All of these ideas have value, but none provides a complete solution. A bus works where passenger volumes can support a route and schedule. A taxi works when a driver is available and the fare covers the trip. A designated driver works when someone in the group is willing and able to remain sober. A friend or neighbour works when that person can be reached at midnight. Rural transportation policy must recognize that no single option will serve every location, event, worker and passenger.
What Prince Edward County Tried
Prince Edward County entered into an arrangement with Uride to improve on-demand ride availability in a market where passenger fares alone were not producing sufficient driver coverage. The municipal contribution was intended to support the wages or earnings needed to maintain a more dependable schedule across a geographically dispersed area.
In January 2024, Council authorized an amended agreement providing a maximum subsidy of $30,000, with up to $15,000 to be cost-shared by tourism-industry partners. The agreement contemplated service expectations relating to operating days, hours and the geographic distribution of rides.[10] Prince Edward County’s later budget records included another $30,000 allocation for the service agreement from Municipal Accommodation Tax revenue.[11]
The use of tourism revenue was logical. The transportation gap is partly created by the success of the visitor economy, and a contribution from accommodations and tourism businesses places less of the burden on general property taxation. Wineries, restaurants, accommodations, venues and event operators also benefit directly when customers and workers have a practical way to travel safely.
The arrangement nevertheless attracted criticism. Some residents felt it did not resolve the shortage of safe and available transportation, particularly for hospitality employees finishing late shifts. Others argued that funding one ride-hailing provider was unfair to local taxi companies that had operated without comparable public assistance. Several residents stated simply that the County already has taxis and should support them rather than introducing an outside platform.
Those objections should not be dismissed. Public money should not be used casually to favour one business while local competitors face the same difficult market conditions. If taxi companies, shuttle operators or designated-driver businesses can provide the required service, they should have a fair opportunity to participate.
The weakness in the debate was the assumption that the County faced only two choices: subsidize Uride or provide no support at all.
Why the Initial Defunding Approach Was Wrong
Council’s earlier decision to reject continued Uride support responded to a legitimate concern about fairness, but withdrawing transportation funding before securing a reliable alternative was the wrong policy response. The problem was not that the municipality had recognized a public need. The problem was that assistance was associated too closely with one company rather than with a clearly defined service available through fair competition.
If a road-maintenance contractor performs poorly, a municipality does not conclude that roads should no longer be maintained. It establishes better performance standards and selects another provider. If a waste contract becomes too costly, Council does not abandon collection. It reviews the service, tests the market and procures a better arrangement.
Safe rural transportation should be treated with the same discipline. Prince Edward County should not be required to guarantee Uride’s profitability or preserve its local market position. Nor should public funding become an automatic annual entitlement. The County should define the transportation coverage it requires and allow Uride, local taxis, shuttle companies and other qualified operators to compete to provide it.
Defunding a weak model without replacing the underlying service would have confused dissatisfaction with one contract for evidence that the public need did not exist.
The comments supplied by local residents show that the need remains unresolved. One commenter argued that Uride funding had failed to produce safe, available transportation for either people trying to avoid impaired driving or service-industry employees travelling after late shifts. That criticism supports stronger performance requirements and more transparent reporting, not the disappearance of transportation funding.
Another commenter asked why residents could not simply plan ahead with a designated driver or call someone they knew. Individuals absolutely should plan ahead, but municipal policy cannot assume that every tourist has a nearby friend, that every hospitality employee has a family member available after midnight or that every group contains a person prepared to remain sober. Public safety policy should encourage personal responsibility while recognizing predictable gaps in the real world.
The Difference Between Funding a Company and Purchasing a Service
The word subsidy has shaped much of the debate. It suggests that a government is protecting an unsuccessful business from market discipline, and sometimes that is exactly what public funding does. A properly structured rural transportation agreement, however, can be better understood as the purchase of a public service.
Municipalities routinely hire private businesses to collect waste, plow roads, maintain software, conduct engineering work, operate recreation facilities and provide specialized equipment. The fact that a private supplier receives payment does not eliminate the public purpose. The important questions are whether the service is necessary, whether the selection process is fair, whether the price is reasonable and whether the promised results are measured.
A rural ride contract might purchase guaranteed driver availability between specified hours, service to distant wards, response during major events, accessible transportation or rides for late-shift employees. The municipality would not pay merely because an application exists. It would pay for verified coverage that the market is otherwise unable to sustain.
This distinction is crucial because ride-hailing economics depend heavily on population density. In a city, a driver completing one trip can often collect another passenger nearby. In a rural county, the driver may travel many kilometres without a passenger before the fare begins and return empty after it ends. The customer pays for the booked trip, but the driver absorbs much of the unpaid distance surrounding it.
An Uber or Lyft platform cannot change that geography. A familiar logo may appear on a phone while no driver is available within a practical distance.
Uber and Lyft Are Not Transportation Strategies
Residents often ask how their municipality can “bring Uber” to the community, but Uber and Lyft decide where and how actively they operate according to their own commercial models. A municipality may modernize its vehicle-for-hire rules and remove unnecessary barriers, yet it cannot compel enough private drivers to remain available on winter evenings, serve remote homes or wait for the end of a wedding.
A platform may also technically operate in a rural area while offering inconsistent coverage. Drivers may participate during high-demand summer weekends but not during February. Vehicles may congregate around one popular settlement while outlying areas remain unserved. The presence of an application is therefore not the same as the presence of dependable transportation.
The correct objective is not a particular brand. It is a measurable probability that a resident, worker or visitor can obtain a safe ride within a reasonable period.
A locally owned taxi company offering guaranteed hours may produce greater value than an international ride-hailing platform with sporadic availability. A late-night shuttle connecting major venues with the principal settlements may efficiently move groups of people. A designated-driver service may return both a customer and the customer’s vehicle home. Larger restaurants, accommodations and event venues may be able to share employee transportation.
A rural municipality will probably need a combination of these models rather than one universal solution.
Local Taxis Should Be Part of the Answer
Several community members asked why local taxis were not sufficient and urged residents to support existing companies. Their concern deserves a direct answer.
Local taxi operators are essential assets. They employ local people, understand rural roads and have often provided service under challenging economic conditions for years. Any municipality considering public support should ensure that established taxi firms can compete on equal terms with app-based companies.
At the same time, the existence of taxi licences does not automatically prove that enough vehicles are available at every required hour or location. A small number of operators cannot be expected to cover a large county simultaneously, particularly when concerts, weddings and restaurant closings create concentrated demand. The decisive questions are how many vehicles are available, how quickly they can respond, how far they will travel and whether workers and lower-income residents can afford the fare.
The County should therefore avoid framing the issue as local taxis against ride-hailing. It should invite both to help design and deliver a stronger system.
The Hospitality Worker Has Been Missing From the Debate
The discussion about impaired driving often centres on tourists leaving wineries, but the transportation problem is equally significant for the people working in the tourism economy. Cooks, servers, dishwashers, cleaners, bartenders, event staff and security personnel may finish after buses have stopped and when taxis are committed to customers.
A visitor may pay for a long-distance fare once during a vacation. An employee earning a modest wage cannot necessarily pay that fare several nights each week. Without reliable transportation, a worker may decline a shift, leave a job or depend on an unreliable network of colleagues, family members and friends.
This creates an economic-development problem as well as a safety problem. Rural restaurants, hotels and venues already report difficulty recruiting and retaining employees. A community that promotes tourism while failing to provide worker mobility is asking businesses to build a modern service economy on transportation arrangements that remain largely informal.
Employee transportation should therefore be part of any safe-ride strategy. Major employers could participate through pooled shuttles, subsidized employee fares or scheduled end-of-shift routes. Municipal funding could support the rural portions of those trips where distance makes the service commercially unviable.
Wineries, Breweries and Events Carry a Responsibility
One commenter suggested that ride programs should be established outside wineries and breweries where tastings occur. Another questioned whether enforcement locations reflect where tourists are likely to travel.
Operational police decisions should be left to the OPP, which must deploy resources according to evidence, safety, legal authority and intelligence rather than public speculation. The broader suggestion that alcohol-serving businesses should participate in transportation planning is nevertheless sound.
A winery, brewery, wedding venue or festival cannot control every choice made by its customers, but businesses that profit from alcohol service should help create conditions in which safe decisions are practical. This might include shared shuttles, designated-driver incentives, taxi staging areas, prepaid ride credits, advance transportation reservations and contributions to a regional safe-ride fund.
Municipal approval of large events could require a transportation plan just as it requires attention to parking, fire routes, occupancy and emergency access. The requirement should be proportionate, but the end of an event should not be treated as though every attendee and employee simply disappears from municipal responsibility.
The Summer Bus Is Helpful but Incomplete
Prince Edward County’s seasonal transit experiments illustrate both the potential and limitation of fixed-route transportation. A bus connecting towns, attractions and Base31 can reduce traffic, move visitors and provide an affordable option during scheduled hours. It deserves careful evaluation and, where ridership supports it, continued improvement.
The comment that a person may still need to drive from a bus stop to a rural home, however, identifies the core challenge. Fixed-route transit moves people efficiently along corridors. It does not usually provide door-to-door rural coverage.
The two systems should be designed to complement one another. A bus might carry passengers among Picton, Bloomfield, Wellington and major events, while taxis or ride-hailing providers complete the final portion of the trip. Event organizers could coordinate departure times with bus service, and ride providers could be staged at principal stops.
Rather than asking whether the County should have a bus or ride-hailing, planners should ask how each service can reduce the distance and cost of the other.
What Municipalities Should Measure
A central weakness in many publicly supported ride programs is that councils approve funding without receiving enough information to determine whether the service worked. Prince Edward County’s experience should become a warning to every municipality considering a similar arrangement.
A transportation provider receiving public funds should report the number of completed rides, hours of driver availability, median passenger wait time, unanswered requests, cancellations and geographical distribution. Council should know how many trips occurred after 10 p.m., how many served rural destinations, how many transported workers and how often accessible transportation was requested but unavailable.
The municipality should calculate the public contribution per completed trip and per guaranteed service hour. It should disclose how much funding came from general taxpayers, Municipal Accommodation Tax revenue, tourism businesses, passenger fares and participating employers.
Most importantly, Council should receive information about service failures. Completed rides reveal whom the system helped, but rejected or abandoned requests reveal the unmet need. A service reporting thousands of successful journeys may still be inadequate if large numbers of passengers cannot obtain a vehicle when major events end.
Impaired-driving data should also be tracked, but the municipality should avoid claiming that a ride program caused charges to rise or fall without proper analysis. More enforcement can produce more charges even while behaviour improves. A credible assessment would examine several years of RIDE operations, roadside tests, impaired-driving incidents, collisions, transportation usage and public surveys.
A Rural Safe-Ride Standard
Every rural county with limited transit and significant evening activity should establish a Rural Safe-Ride Standard. The standard would define the minimum transportation coverage the community believes should be available, particularly during times and events associated with elevated risk.
Qualified taxi companies, ride-hailing platforms, shuttle operators and designated-driver services could compete to provide all or part of that coverage. Public support would be tied to verified performance rather than the identity of the operator.
A county might purchase guaranteed coverage on Friday and Saturday nights, increased capacity during festivals, transportation from remote venues, service for late-shift workers or accessible vehicles. Operators serving distant areas could be compensated for verified empty travel that ordinary fares do not cover.
Funding should be shared where possible. Municipal Accommodation Tax revenue is appropriate in tourism communities, while wineries, accommodations, restaurants, venues and major employers should contribute according to the benefit they receive. Passenger fares would remain part of the model, with public funds covering only the portion required to make essential but commercially weak trips viable.
Regional cooperation may offer the greatest opportunity. A single county may not generate enough trips to sustain drivers, but a network connecting neighbouring municipalities, hospitals, train stations, colleges, employment centres and entertainment venues may reduce empty travel and create a more viable market.
People do not stop travelling when they cross a municipal boundary, and transportation policy should not stop there either.
The OPP’s Role and the Municipal Role
The OPP must continue strong, visible impaired-driving enforcement. A person who drives while impaired makes a dangerous and potentially criminal choice, regardless of whether a taxi, bus or ride-hailing vehicle was available. Nothing about rural geography excuses that decision.
Municipal councils, however, should not interpret enforcement as a substitute for prevention. Police can detect impaired drivers, administer roadside tests, conduct investigations and lay charges. They cannot create the transportation system residents require.
The OPP can assist local planning by sharing anonymized information about when and where impaired-driving incidents occur, the seasonal patterns officers observe and the relationship between major events and traffic risks. Municipalities can use that evidence to determine when additional transportation capacity is most necessary.
Businesses can help customers and employees plan. Transportation providers can deliver the rides. Residents must make responsible decisions. Municipalities must coordinate the system and address the gaps the private market cannot resolve.
Each has a different responsibility, and none can transfer its entire burden to the others.
The Lesson From Prince Edward County
Prince Edward County was right to question whether public funds provided to Uride were delivering reliable transportation and whether local taxi businesses had been treated fairly. Those were necessary questions, particularly when residents continued reporting unavailable rides and hospitality workers remained unable to travel home after late shifts.
The mistake would be to treat those shortcomings as proof that transportation support itself should be abandoned.
When public funding fails to produce the promised service, Council should require better data, enforce stronger standards, invite competing proposals and redesign the program. It should not withdraw the service first and hope that a rural market already shown to be marginal will somehow correct itself.
The lesson applies to counties across Canada and beyond. Communities do not need to choose between subsidizing one company indefinitely and leaving transportation entirely to the market. They can define the public outcome, establish fair competition and purchase only the measurable coverage that residents, workers and visitors require.
Impaired driving will never be solved by transportation alone. Some people will continue to make dangerous decisions even when alternatives exist. Strong policing, penalties, education and personal responsibility remain essential.
But a community should not make the safe choice unnecessarily difficult and then rely entirely on enforcement after the unsafe choice has been made.
A rural municipality that promotes wineries, weddings, concerts, restaurants and nightlife cannot recreate the density of a city. It can, however, recognize the transportation responsibility that accompanies the economy it has chosen to build.
The road home should not depend on luck.
That is one town’s lesson for every county.
The County First Lesson
One town: Prince Edward County.
One challenge: A large rural tourism municipality in which stronger impaired-driving enforcement has not always been matched by dependable late-night transportation for residents, visitors and hospitality workers.
One lesson for every community: Do not tie safe transportation permanently to one company, but do not eliminate the public service merely because the original funding model was imperfect. Define the required coverage, invite qualified providers to compete, share the cost with the businesses that benefit and pay only for measurable results.
About “One Town. One Lesson.”
One Town. One Lesson. is a weekly County First series that examines a challenge, success or public-policy decision in one municipality and considers what other communities can learn from it.
Each article begins with one local story but follows the issue beyond municipal boundaries, making the experience relevant to counties, towns and rural regions across Canada and North America. Future articles may examine how one tourism community balanced growth, how a small municipality reduced infrastructure costs or how a county transformed public engagement.
One place provides the evidence. The wider lesson belongs to everyone.
Footnotes
[1] Statistics Canada, Police-reported crime in rural and urban areas in the Canadian provinces, 2024. The report identifies substantially higher police-reported impaired-driving rates in rural than urban areas and cautions that rural and urban communities operate in different transportation and enforcement environments. (Statistics Canada)
[2] Statistics Canada, analysis of rural and urban impaired-driving patterns, including the higher rural rate of impaired driving causing death or bodily harm and the relevance of transportation availability, travel distances and vehicle dependence. (Statistics Canada)
[3] Statistics Canada, Driving home impaired-driving data for the holiday season and The Weekly Review, reporting 71,602 police-reported impaired-driving incidents nationally in 2023, a national rate of 179 per 100,000 and an Ontario rate of 103 per 100,000. (Statistics Canada)
[4] Ontario Provincial Police, 2024 Annual Report and OPP operational statistics. The OPP reported more than 438,000 traffic stops during 2024; Canada Road Safety Week resulted in 254 impaired-driving charges, and Operation Impact during the Thanksgiving weekend resulted in 163. (OPP)
[5] Statistics Canada’s police-reported crime tables and Public Safety Canada’s national impaired-driving reporting explain that enforcement practices, data collection and jurisdictional methods can affect incident totals and comparisons. (Statistics Canada)
[6] Smiths Falls Police Service, 2024 Annual Report. The service reported five provincially funded RIDE operations involving 785 vehicles and 19 additional RIDE programs involving 1,429 vehicles, while discussing alcohol- and drug-impaired operation on roads, waterways and trails. (Town of Smiths Falls)
[7] LaSalle Police Service, 2024 Annual Report, impaired-driving occurrence and roadside-suspension tables. The report illustrates the importance of reviewing multiyear figures, definitions and enforcement activity rather than drawing conclusions from one annual count. (Town of LaSalle)
[8] Toronto Police Service, 2024 Chief’s Annual Report. Toronto reported 388 RIDE deployments, approximately 35,000 vehicles stopped, 3,400 breath tests, 17 arrests and 72 suspensions during the reported campaign. (Toronto Police Service)
[9] Prince Edward County transportation-planning material describing the 2024 Picton Summer Loop pilot and service to Base31 and other stops. (The County)
[10] Corporation of the County of Prince Edward, Council minutes, January 10, 2024. Council authorized an amended Uride agreement with a maximum 2024 subsidy of $30,000, with up to $15,000 cost-shared by tourism-industry partners. (Prince Edward County)
[11] Prince Edward County 2025 budget deliberation records, allocating $30,000 from Municipal Accommodation Tax revenue to fund the Uride service agreement. (Prince Edward County)
Disclaimer
This article examines impaired-driving prevention, rural transportation and municipal policy. It does not suggest that the absence of transportation caused any particular offence, collision, injury or death, nor does it claim that Uride, Uber, Lyft, a taxi company or another transportation provider can eliminate impaired driving. Drivers remain personally responsible for complying with the law and arranging safe transportation before consuming alcohol, cannabis or any other impairing substance.
Police-reported incident rates are affected by enforcement activity, reporting practices, population estimates, tourism and local circumstances. Comparisons among municipalities should therefore account for RIDE operations, traffic stops, road kilometres, seasonal populations and other relevant factors.
The community comments discussed in this article were provided as part of a public online conversation and are used to identify recurring policy concerns rather than to criticize individual participants. Nothing in the article alleges wrongdoing or improper motive by Prince Edward County, Council, municipal staff, the OPP, Uride, Uber, Lyft, local taxi operators, tourism businesses or any other person or organization. County First supports an operator-neutral system in which any public funding is transparent, competitively available and tied to measurable service.