Staff
With statistics indicating that this summer could go down as one of the worst on record for death and carnage on Alberta’s highways, a Rimbey RCMP officer has some personal, yet highly compelling thoughts about why some people still drink and drive, why the message is not getting through to its intended audience and a common-sense, albeit controversial approach to how to deal with the aftermath.
“We have to look at what impaired driving is. Impaired driving is one of the most selfish offenses that can be committed,” said Const. Charles Lambright. “Anybody who disregards other people’s lives to the point where they cannot organize their way from one point to another where they don’t have to get behind the wheel after they’ve been drinking, I would have to categorize them as an extremely selfish person.”
In the month of July alone, the RCMP in Alberta investigated 28 rural traffic deaths including 13 in a period of just four days. Of those, police believe 15 deaths were directly attributed to impaired driving. In addition, another six deaths occurred in traffic collisions in Calgary and Edmonton in the same month, and the situation is expected to get worse before it gets better.
According to statistics supplied by the Alberta Sheriff Highway Patrol, August has the most alcohol-related deaths and injuries than any other month. In fact, during the most recent long weekend, Alberta sheriffs laid 2,388 charges province-wide including 27 Gaming and Liquor Act violations and 1,818 speeding charges.
Despite some heavy publicity, the message of the dangers of getting behind the wheel after drinking and the repercussions that could follow are not getting through, but Lambright said it’s a case of good news, bad news.
On the positive side, the message, in fact, is getting through, but the bad news is it’s not getting through to the right people.
“When you consider who the message is aimed at, that is probably the reason the why the message doesn’t get through as well. I would like to give a bit of a thumbs-up to the youth in the two communities that I’ve worked in – we catch next to no teenaged impaired drivers, and that’s not because we don’t pull them over and talk to them, because we do,” said Lambright, who transferred to Rimbey in the past year from his first posting in Wainwright.
He added the issue is a case of a role-reversal in that under normal circumstances, parents and adults generally teach youth the difference between right and wrong. But when it comes to drinking and driving, in more and more cases it’s youth teaching adults thanks in large part to programs such as Students Against Drinking and Driving (SADD) and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program (DARE).
“We frequently give teenagers tickets for consuming liquor in a vehicle, but invariably what we find is that the driver is not consuming and the driver has not consumed,” Lambright said. “The kids in today’s world are very good at organizing their own designated drivers who do not drink. I cannot say the same for the over-30 crowd. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
Lambright said even though Wainwright’s population of 5,000 is more than double that of Rimbey’s, the incidence of drinking and driving is much higher here for reasons he simply can’t put his finger on.
One thing’s for sure however, now that the community has a taxi service there are no more excuses and the practice of drinking and driving will not be tolerated.
“In addition to the fact that we do have public transportation here now, they (taxis) give a sober alternative to driving home drunk,” Lambright said. “They’re inexpensive and reasonable for the ride when you consider the price of gas and everything else. Why they’re not being used more is beyond me.”
Staggering costs – both human and monetary
According to the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research, there are more than 140,000 traffic collisions in the province every year, resulting in upwards of 25,000 injuries and approximately 450 fatalities with three-quarters of the collisions occurring or highways or rural roads.
Between 1996 and 2002, the overall cost of the collisions to Albertans was $3.7 billion or an average cost of $457 million per year.
As for a possible solution to the problem – especially in the case of those who re-offend, Lambright said a dose of shock therapy might be just what the doctor ordered.
“When you talk about impaired driving and loss of income, there’s a human toll that outweighs that, far and above. In my own personal opinion, sentencing for impaired driving should not just be a monetary fine and a one-year driving prohibition. It should also include the accompaniment with the police, to do one next-of-kin notification on a traffic fatality. Just one time,” he said.
“If anybody ever had to accompany a police officer to go and tell a loved one that someone they knew and cared a great deal about had died in a traffic accident, I think you’d see a cut in the amount of impaired driving considerably,” Lambright said. “Impaired driving is such a senseless, senseless cause of death and so easily avoided, and that’s about all I can tell you.”