(Aired on September 20, 2010)
British Columbia now has the toughest drunk driving laws in Canada. Starting today, it's going to be easier for law enforcement officials to take away your car, slap you with a fine and take away your driving privileges. Not only for the drivers who are over .08, but there's a new "warning" category, where you can lose your licence for three days and pay a fine to boot. Over .08, penalties are even stiffer. You could get a 90 day driving ban. And speeders caught doing more than 40 clicks over the speed limit will be affected too, getting their vehicles impounded for a week with escalating penalties for subsequent offences.
It's about time. It's also good that refusing to take a breathalyzer test at the scene is no longer a way out. The penalty is immediate. It will make all of us think twice, not only those who drink more heavily, but even those of us who are more social drinkers. Speed and alcohol are contributors to so many accidents that it's about time we tried to take steps to curb the problem. And the Liberal government, who have been criticized on so many fronts recently, deserve to take some credit for this latest initiative. It's long overdue and hopefully will serve as a model for other provinces to follow.
The only problem I see is having the police resources to enforce these laws. We actually catch very few problem drivers. Our resources don't provide for the traffic checks we need to enforce these laws. We'll certainly do a better job than before even with the resources we have now, but we will almost certainly only catch a small percentage of offenders unless we put enough officers in place to really do an effective job. That might be a little longer in coming. But at least we've made a start, and hopefully we'll get people thinking before they become idiots on the road.
Showing posts with label law enforcement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law enforcement. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Education not Changing Driving Habits
(Aired on July 29, 2010)
They say education is the key to solving a lot of problems these days. But sometimes the best education is a good swift kick in the pants.
Despite all the education, people aren't getting the message when it comes to driving offences. A major intersection safety check yesterday at Summit and Columbia is a perfect example. The results were absolutely terrible. 19 people still haven't heard the educational message regarding seat belt use. 10 charged with texting while driving, 7 more talking on their cell. How much more education do we need to do on these things? 8 people were charged with blowing a yellow light, 13 charged, if you can believe it, for failing to stop at a red light. No wonder ICBC's bills are so high.
Do these people think they're driving in Vancouver? People seem to zone out when they're driving, and many are obviously totally oblivious to what's going on around them. My wife and son were almost wiped out the other night by some woman who turned left right in front of them because she obviously didn't see them coming. Fortunately, my son has quick reactions and avoided what would have been an extremely serious collision, because the woman was obviously trying to speed through the intersection and make the turn before my son got there. If he had been travelling even at the speed limit he wouldn't have been able to stop.
These kinds of intersection checks should be the order of the day until people start to get the message. I know they take resources, but surely having 20 people blow yellow or red lights is in itself justification for having these patrols. And let's raise the fines. I'm not sure how a figure of precisely $167 was arrived at for a fine, but how about upping it to $500? Maybe that will change a few people's thinking.
People are not invincible, and putting other peoples' lives at risk needs to be punished with something substantial. And let's take their licenses away for a year. I don't think running a red light is any less dangerous than drinking and driving. Keep the education. I think that's important. But we obviously need to do more. So let's ramp up the punishment too.
They say education is the key to solving a lot of problems these days. But sometimes the best education is a good swift kick in the pants.
Despite all the education, people aren't getting the message when it comes to driving offences. A major intersection safety check yesterday at Summit and Columbia is a perfect example. The results were absolutely terrible. 19 people still haven't heard the educational message regarding seat belt use. 10 charged with texting while driving, 7 more talking on their cell. How much more education do we need to do on these things? 8 people were charged with blowing a yellow light, 13 charged, if you can believe it, for failing to stop at a red light. No wonder ICBC's bills are so high.
Do these people think they're driving in Vancouver? People seem to zone out when they're driving, and many are obviously totally oblivious to what's going on around them. My wife and son were almost wiped out the other night by some woman who turned left right in front of them because she obviously didn't see them coming. Fortunately, my son has quick reactions and avoided what would have been an extremely serious collision, because the woman was obviously trying to speed through the intersection and make the turn before my son got there. If he had been travelling even at the speed limit he wouldn't have been able to stop.
These kinds of intersection checks should be the order of the day until people start to get the message. I know they take resources, but surely having 20 people blow yellow or red lights is in itself justification for having these patrols. And let's raise the fines. I'm not sure how a figure of precisely $167 was arrived at for a fine, but how about upping it to $500? Maybe that will change a few people's thinking.
People are not invincible, and putting other peoples' lives at risk needs to be punished with something substantial. And let's take their licenses away for a year. I don't think running a red light is any less dangerous than drinking and driving. Keep the education. I think that's important. But we obviously need to do more. So let's ramp up the punishment too.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Shuswap Crash Highlights Lack of Enforcement
(Aired on June 5, 2010)
The weekend tragedy on the Shuswap has once again focused peoples' concerns about policing on the lake. I guess not just this lake, but every large lake.
It might be a while before all the details come to light about the weekend accident that saw a speedboat collide with a houseboat, killing one person and sending several more to hospital. So it's hard to say that this is something relating to lack of policing, or whether other issues involved. But when you talk to residents of the Shuswap, or Okanagan Lake, or Kalamalka Lake, or Skaha Lake, one of their big issues is a lack of a police presence. Police presence is negligible.
There are rules against drinking. How many times have you seen boats checked? You have to have an Operator's Card, which is a joke in itself, but nevertheless, how many times are people checked? How many times do you see people speeding dangerously close to other boats, to houseboats, or swimmers in the lake? Where are the enforcement officials?
I'll tell you where they are. Doing the myriad of other tasks that are assigned to them because there just aren't enough officers to go around. Funding is such that we just don't have enough officers to get out to these locations, just like we don't have conservation officers to do their jobs, or staffing in provincial campsites. And I could go on and on.
Many of these tragedies are caused by carelessness, or consumption of alcohol. How many people do you know who go out on the lake with a case of beer or something stronger and laugh about how they're only going to have a couple of drinks. Pretty soon their judgment suffers to the point where they shouldn't be operating a boat at all. The cost of putting enforcement in place is high. I guess it's a question of what value we put on a life to determine whether or not we need to put pressure on our governments to make changes.
The weekend tragedy on the Shuswap has once again focused peoples' concerns about policing on the lake. I guess not just this lake, but every large lake.
It might be a while before all the details come to light about the weekend accident that saw a speedboat collide with a houseboat, killing one person and sending several more to hospital. So it's hard to say that this is something relating to lack of policing, or whether other issues involved. But when you talk to residents of the Shuswap, or Okanagan Lake, or Kalamalka Lake, or Skaha Lake, one of their big issues is a lack of a police presence. Police presence is negligible.
There are rules against drinking. How many times have you seen boats checked? You have to have an Operator's Card, which is a joke in itself, but nevertheless, how many times are people checked? How many times do you see people speeding dangerously close to other boats, to houseboats, or swimmers in the lake? Where are the enforcement officials?
I'll tell you where they are. Doing the myriad of other tasks that are assigned to them because there just aren't enough officers to go around. Funding is such that we just don't have enough officers to get out to these locations, just like we don't have conservation officers to do their jobs, or staffing in provincial campsites. And I could go on and on.
Many of these tragedies are caused by carelessness, or consumption of alcohol. How many people do you know who go out on the lake with a case of beer or something stronger and laugh about how they're only going to have a couple of drinks. Pretty soon their judgment suffers to the point where they shouldn't be operating a boat at all. The cost of putting enforcement in place is high. I guess it's a question of what value we put on a life to determine whether or not we need to put pressure on our governments to make changes.
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