Despite their sustained, increasingly-extreme efforts to crack down on impaired driving, police in and around Toronto continue to struggle with sky-high volumes of DUI arrests.

OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt announced this afternoon that 24 people had been charged with imparied driving over the Labour Day weekend by provincial police officers alone.

Toronto Police arrested at least 20 more people for the same offence, noting that "several calls to 911 from concerned people helped officers make arrests."

From 6:00 p.m. Friday to 6:00 a.m. Tuesday, the @TorontoPolice arrested 20 people for Impaired Driving offences.

Male over four times the legal limit falls out of slow moving vehicle. See details below. pic.twitter.com/D2DGnaXv5z

— Scott Matthews (@TPSTrafficDC) September 3, 2019

One male arrested in Toronto was "observed falling out of a slow-moving motor vehicle," according to police. His blood alcohol level was found to be more than four times the legal limit. 

York Regional Police lamented that they'd already arrested three impaired drivers by 10 a.m. on Friday, making for "a very disappointing start to the Labour Day long weekend."

The first two incidents involved what police called "impairment by drug," while the third was alcohol related.

24 #ImpairedDriving charges and 34 #StreetRacing/Dangerous driving charges over the #LabourDay long weekend in the #GTA pic.twitter.com/APPWM0V8Ly

— Sgt Kerry Schmidt (@OPP_HSD) September 3, 2019

These numbers are even more striking given that this was the first Labour Day weekend since Canada's harsher new penalties for driving under the influence came into effect.

As of January, first offenders with a blood alcohol concentration of 80 to 119 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood are subject to a mandatory $1,000 fine (which gets steeper, the higher your BAC is found to be).

Those who refuse to submit a breath sample outright could be charged with a criminal offence, and will have to pay a mandatory minimum $2,000 fine, either way.