Get Manitoba tough on impaired drivers

Published Tuesday July 1st, 2008

By the number of impaired-related charges showing up in area courtrooms from week to week, it certainly appears these drivers don't care about their lives or the lives of others, at least not enough to put their keys back in their pocket when they've had a few drinks. Someone's life is worth vastly more than whatever it will cost in cab fare or even the phone call to a friend for a drive home.

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Two recent motor vehicle crashes, both of which police said involved alcohol, are the latest examples of how motorists here continue to exercise poor, sometimes deadly, judgment choosing to drink and drive.

One collision took the life of 19-year-old Shana Berryman. The Belleisle teen was a passenger in a car that left a stretch of road in Wards Creek. The driver of the car is under investigation for suspected impaired driving, as is the driver of the truck that smashed head on into a car with a pair of sober teens returning from a babysitting job in Picadilly.

Local RCMP describes incidents of impaired driving in Kings County as steady and that's the problem. The message is getting out but is obviously falling on far too many deaf ears.

There are always going to be a select few who don't care no matter how harsh the consequences are. The courts are trying to make impaired drivers sweat a little bit by handing out more significant fines to even first time offenders, but are it enough to deter someone from doing it again?

The answer, perhaps, can be found in Manitoba.

MADD Canada rated the Keystone province as A- in its 2006 provincial assessment report card for, among others factors, its .00 per cent blood-alcohol concentration restrictions on new drivers, graduated licensing enforcement, police enforcement powers, short-term administrative licence suspension and vehicle forfeiture program.

And according to its own statistics, the tough stand against drinking and driving was paying off as the number of alcohol-related deaths and injuries dropped significantly.

In that same survey, MADD Canada gave New Brunswick an embarrassing grade of D when assessing the completeness and effectiveness of impaired driving laws. Since then, MADD has provided an update and calls NB's improvements to those laws "promising" but a D is a desperately far from an A-.

It's time to turn up the heat, Manitoba-style, on drivers in Kings County and around NB.

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