Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) in Essex County are sounding the alarm after seeing a steady rise in impaired driving charges.
According to the OPP, there was a 60 per cent jump in impaired driving charges in Essex County in January 2026 compared to January 2025.
Last month, OPP laid 48 impaired driving charges compared to 30 in January 2025.
Acting superintendent Jamie Smith says the increase is alarming and needs to stop.
He says officers are seeing a huge increase in impaired driving offences.
"As much as we have MADD out there campaigning, as much as we're out there in the communities doing RIDE programs, the visibility we're still seeing increases there, and that's alarming, and it needs to stop," he says.
Smith says officers are out in the communities doing traffic initiatives.
"When our officers are out there doing the proactive traffic stops and stopping people, interacting more, and setting up those RIDE programs, then we can see an increase in the impaired driving," says Smith. "It's happening. We might not be catching it all, but if we're out there and doing that enforcement, we are going to see an increase there."
He says OPP officers will continue to be on the roadways and are hoping to reduce the number of collisions.
"Those ones that involve impaired drivers and unfortunate that they're still out there, but it's good that we're catching them before something tragic happens," he says.
Smith says Essex County OPP are also seeing increases in speeding, seatbelt violations, and distracted driving.
Last month, 757 speeding charges were laid compared to 281 in January 2025.
That's a 169.4 per cent jump.
As for seatbelt charges, 21 were issued in January 2026 compared to only one in January 2025.
Distracted driving charges were up 800 per cent year-to-year.
In January 2025, two tickets were issued compared to 18 in January 2026.