Road safety efforts should keep rolling
News
Posted 1 month ago
No one past the age of 22 will have a problem with Ontario's new, tougher drinking- and-driving laws.
Starting Sunday, there's absolutely zero tolerance for drivers less than 22 years old who have had anything to drink.
No matter what their class of driver's licence, they must now maintain a zero blood-alcohol concentration at all times while driving. Now the slightest hint of booze could lead to a fine and licence suspension. Police roadside breath tests use equipment that can detect even minute amounts of alcohol.
Anyone with a G1 or G2 graduated licence has already been driving with such restrictions, but it's about to become an age thing for G-class licence holders too.
Any young driver caught with alcohol in their blood will get an automatic 24-hour licence suspension. They would also be charged under the new Highway Traffic Act law. If convicted, the person would receive a 30- day licence suspension and could also face a fine of up to $500.
The hope is to reduce highway fatalities related to impaired driving, because, on average, about two dozen people between the ages of 19 and 21 die each year on OPPpatrolled roads.
Groups such as MADD Canada, which has a Barrie/Simoce chapter, are praising the new law.
And it's not difficult to see where this is going, not in the near future, but in the future nonetheless.
One day, the zero tolerance for alcohol for drivers less than 22 years old will be the standard for all drivers.
The law was changed recently to reduce the alcohol threshold in drivers to 0.05% from 0.08%. How long before it's changed to 0.00%?
That is the logical target for those who want drivers who are impaired, to any degree, off our roads and highways.
It's probably no longer a matter of 'if', but 'when'.
Of course, there's no absolute protection from dangers on the road, or absolute justice for those who cause danger there -- old or young.
Consider the case of Corey Graves, a Midhurst teenager charged with speeding at 239 kilometres an hour in the spring of 2008, on Highway 26 just north of Barrie.
He was clocked by OPP radar doing 159 km/h over the 80 km/h posted speed limit at about 2 a.m. on May 18, driving his father's 2000 Lincoln LLS on the Victoria Day long weekend.
Graves faced a fine of as much as $10,000, a six-month jail sentence and a major hike in his future car insurance rates.
But almost a year and a half later, the charges against Graves were dropped because a provincial offences court justice of the peace said the arresting officer's notes were inadequate.
Although police radar showed a reading of 239 km/h for three seconds on the Lincoln Graves was driving, the officer's notes didn't mention the speed, if there was any commotion in the car, which had four passengers, and the road conditions were not noted.
He was found guilty of failing to surrender his driver's licence and fined $85.
About the best thing that can be said about this situation is that no lives were lost, nor was anyone injured, by a vehicle going 239 km/h.
The point is, there's no one thing that can be done to make Ontario streets and highways absolutely safe.
But that should not stop the effort.
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