There are a number changes in the law that took effect Tuesday regarding drinking and driving. Harold Laninga, Staff Sergeant of the Steinbach RCMP detachment, says officers can now stop any vehicle and demand a breath test without first needing to have prior suspicion of impairment. Furthermore, a blood-alcohol reading of .05 or higher will now lead to your vehicle being impounded for three days in addition to a three-day licence suspension.

Laninga adds, also effective Tuesday, the interpretation of a .08 breath sample is being tightened up.

"The legal blood-alcohol limit is now .080. In the past, what was happening was, the readings were always truncated. So, if someone blew .089, that would not be .09 so it wouldn't count. The person is almost at .09 but it did not count. So now they have changed it to say that anything over .080 would be an (impaired driving) offence.

He says yet another change makes it illegal to consume alcohol for two hours after an incident that may lead to questioning by police, such as a collision.

"If you reasonably ought to have known that the police are going to need to speak to you, and that would include things like an accident or an incident of that nature, then for two hours after that, it would be illegal to consume any alcohol."

Laninga says the tougher law makes sense when you consider driving is a privilege, not a right. He adds police are still finding far too many impaired drivers and hopes these updates in the law will help to reduce that number.