Stephen Vance, Editor
December has arrived, the holiday season is upon us. Colourful lights twinkle in the night, storefronts are adorned with shiny displays, carols stream through unseen speakers… and as at any other time of year, moronic idiots continue to drink and drive.
Sorry, did ‘moronic idiots’ sound a little harsh? How about selfish potential murderers? Vehicular terrorists?
Police services across the country are busy issuing their standard, year-after-year press releases about the dangers of drinking and driving, as well as informing motorists that your friendly local police officers will once again be shivering in the cold at RIDE checks in an attempt to weed out those despicable human beings who can’t seem to get it through their thick heads that alcohol and car keys are a dangerous combination.
The idealist in me feels that in this day and age, after decades of constant messaging from police forces, governments, and other organizations the message should have been received, but the constant stream of impaired driving charges indicates otherwise.
Last year in Meaford alone police issued 98 impaired driving charges, and as of September of this year there had already been nearly 60 impaired driving charges laid. Think about that. In a small town of 11,000 people nearly 100 impaired driving charges were laid in 2015. Translation: In 2015, 100 morons in a town of 11,000 were caught drinking and driving.
Just a few short months ago a drunk driver killed a motorcyclist in Meaford. Sorry, I should be more accurate; the selfish, moronic, irresponsible vehicular terrorist killed a fellow human being, a father, son, friend, neighbour.
Most of us have been touched in some way by drunk drivers. I’ve shared the story of my alcoholic father before – he was very deservedly sent to prison for drinking and driving (and nearly killing, and permanently disabling his best friend in the one vehicle accident my father and his beloved alcohol caused), and as I’ve also written before (and told him directly) he deserved every single day he was in prison, and given the hundreds of times he either wasn’t caught, or didn’t have a terrible accident, he likely deserved to sit in that prison much longer.
The mother of my children nearly lost her own life early in our marriage back in the early ’90s after she was hit head on by a drunk who had stolen a vehicle that had been left running outside a Tim Hortons before crossing into the oncoming lane and plowing head-on into our car at more than 80 kilometres per hour. Fortunately, though the front end of our car had been demolished and driven well into the passenger area, my ex-wife escaped with some internal bruising and little more – thank you, seat belts.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-alcohol, I’ve enjoyed far more than my own share of the spirits over the years, but for those who still in 2016 think it okay to hop in the car after enjoying eight vodka-tonics, I have no time for you.
In spite of the decades of educational messaging, it seems like reports of impaired driving are just as common as ever, and attitudes toward drinking and driving don’t seem to have changed sufficiently for some.
So here we are in 2016, another holiday season is upon us, and as sure as there will be stockings hanging in homes all over on December 24, there will be impaired drivers on the road, where they pose a risk to your children, your spouses, and your friends.
I’m not sure what it will take to make the message sink in. Are stiffer penalties needed? Do we need an impaired driver registry similar to a sex offender registry in order to shame people into compliance?
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know this: most of us get it. Most of us understand. Most of us take a damned taxi or call a friend to pick us up if we’ve had too much to drink but still need to travel somewhere. Most of us aren’t irresponsible, selfish, moronic idiots and potential murderers. To those who are, the rest of us have had enough.
While I don’t know what the solution might be, I have long adhered to the idea that while we can’t actually change the world, we can change the world within our reach, and so we all have to do our part. We decided at The Independent this week that going forward the names of those charged with impaired driving will be included in the articles we publish.
Traditionally with reports about minor crimes in community newspapers, the names of those charged are removed – people make mistakes from time to time, people screw up, so for minor, non-violent crimes, crimes that don’t have an impact on the community at large, names have traditionally been removed. Impaired driving has always been lumped in with those sorts of crimes, and consequently names have traditionally been removed from simple impaired driving articles when there has been no accident or injury.
But enough is enough: impaired driving kills, and if you drink and then get behind the wheel, you’re just one wide-turn, or one lane drift away from potentially killing another human being. Drunk drivers are criminals, plain and simple.
