THE CARNAGE CONTINUES ON OUR ROADS

Cochrane Times - It's my least favourite subject to write about, but
probably the one I write about most.

Drinking and driving and the lip service our society pays to the fight
against it.

Last week, it was an eight-year-old Chestermere boy whose young life
was snuffed out by a 65-year-old suspected drunk driver driving a
one-ton flatbed.

The boy's 14-year-old sister was left critically injured, and the
family is shattered.

Apparently, all because someone was too selfish to not have a few drinks.

And then, in a bit of an ironic twist, rather than getting drunk in a
bar and crashing into someone else, a man in Calgary allegedly gets
drunk and slams into a bar, injuring a group of people.

It is the most preventable, pervasive crime in our country, and the
experts can talk all they want about the rate of drinking and driving
going down. People are still dying everyday in this country at the
hands of someone who has been drinking and then gotten behind the wheel.

I will be following the case of the 65-year-old very closely to see
what, if any, jail time he serves if convicted of being under the
influence when his flat-bed crossed the centre line.

It is chilling to know that some people who drink and drive and kill
get very light jail time, if any at all, while others who drink and
drive, and get caught, might get a fine and their license suspended --
big deal.

If you get caught drinking and driving, you should go to jail. It is
only by dumb luck that you didn't kill someone.

If you kill someone while drinking and driving, you should go to jail
for a long time and you should never drive again.

It really is that simple, or at least it should be.

But, our legal system, which is about as in touch with the desires of
Canadian society as well as a drunk is with sober thought, continues
to hand out lenient sentences.

Not only to the drunk driver, or the drunk driver who kills, or the
drunk driver who gets caught over and over for driving while
suspended, but even to those who do nothing but injure themselves
drinking and driving.

There it was in the Saturday Calgary Sun. A man who spent a night
drinking, and then slammed into the back of a stalled paving truck and
trailer was awarded $600,000 from the paving company.

Incredibly, even though this bozo had a blood alcohol level of twice
the legal driving limit, he was ruled only 25 per cent responsible for
the crash, while the paving company took 75 per cent of the blame for
not using cones, or the four-way flashers on.

Well, this guy shouldn't have been driving at all, so he should be 100
per cent to blame, case closed.

But no. Justice Donald MacLeod sided with the driver and offered some
mumbo-jumbo about making adjustments for absorption after the crash,
and the difference between serum and whole blood.

Arrrrrrrgh. THERE is why we have people driving drunk on our roads. On
one hand we're warned not to do it. But, then you do it and you're
$600,000 richer.

Give me a break.

Then, in Monday's Sun, oh joy, we hear deputy Prime Minster Anne
McLellan is urging Canadian judges to get tough on marijuana grow-ops.

I have never inhaled, never puffed, never even touched the stuff. It's
not my thing, I don't have a lot of respect for those who do it and I
won't be very kind to anyone who ever brings it near my kids.

BUT, I say, let's put that same emphasis on cracking down on drinking
and driving. Let's give police more money to be conducting year-round
checkstops.

And let's make jail time mandatory for any drinking and driving
offence.

No, I'm not a pot fan. But, I can live with the potheads sitting in
their basement getting high.

I can't live with dead eight-year-olds at the hands of drunk
drivers.

Let's get our priorities straight.