POLICING GOES HIGH-TECH

Blowing into a breathalyzer in a room full of police, even for a
demonstration, can be a bit unnerving. How much can you trust a box
that looks like an old Commodore 64?

This reporter thankfully escaped with a 0.0 blood alcohol reading
from, despite its appearance, a state-of-the-art machine.

All the high-tech gadgetry and skills of the RCMP's South Island
Traffic Services in Chemainus were on display for the media Thursday,
as part of a public awareness campaign to reduce highway collisions.
By 2010, Traffic Services want to reduce serious injuries and
fatalities in Canada by 30 per cent.

"We see traffic crashes as homicides with skid marks," said Const.
Dave Hay, a traffic and media relations officer for Vancouver Island.

Hay pointed out Canada has a murder on average every 16 hours but a
fatal traffic collision every three hours and an auto-related injury
every 2.4 minutes. "We treat traffic fatalities like big city
homicides," Hay said. "Since 1988 I've only seen one accident'. Every
other one somebody is responsible."

South Island Traffic Services, with 12 officers, patrols from Duke
Point to the far end of the Malahat, is trying to keep a lid on those
with a lead foot, an aversion to seatbelts and a penchant for alcohol.

On some days, Const. Mike Halskov can be found on the roadside with a
laser mounted on a tripod, picking speeding targets from more than a
kilometre away. "People with laser detectors are wasting their
money," he says.

All the patrol cars and Harley motorcycles are equipped with multiple
radar guns to clock speeders coming or going. Lasers can focus on
cars back in the pack, but radar is mobile.

"Nintey-five per cent of motorists are law abiding people," added
Const. Gregg Calibaba. "Some just make bad driving decisions."

Calibaba works with Red, a lab retriever cross, one of the RCMP's 12
drug detecting dogs in Canada. Red has a nose for seven different
controlled substances - marijuana, hash, cocaine, crack, meth, heroin
and mushrooms. Calibaba says dogs can smell trace amounts of drugs in
one or two parts per million, nullifying almost any hiding spot in a
car.

"The dog is like radar for drugs," Calibaba said, as Red darted
around the detachment parking lot seeking a hidden cloth coated in
marijuana smell.

When Red finds contraband, tucked behind the gas cap of a TV news
crew van, he sits waiting for his chew toy. A dog that bites into
bags of drugs likely won't last long, Calibaba notes.

While officers like Halskov and Calababa are on the front end of
traffic policing, seeking to slow motorists down, Const. Jaret Irving
is on the scene after the damage is done.

Irving is the "CSI guy", a traffic collision analyst who puts the
pieces together before, during and after a fatal or serious crash.

"It's surprisingly similar to CSI," Irving says. "I try to interpret
the physical evidence on the road, using gouges, tire marks. Whether
it helps the police or the driver, I collect the evidence
dispassionately."

Irving can survey a scene, recreating the event on computer and
correlating car damage to victims' injuries. It's tedious, detailed
work that has to move fast aE" evidence is delicate and short lived.

"As tragic as a scene is, I have a job to do," Irving said. "Families
are owed a quality investigation that is done properly."