=~ m7 = Wednes arch day, |! The drunk driver is the worst menace on.our roads and highways. The drunk driver kills one person every by WAYNE TAYLOR two-hours in Canada. The drunk driver injures hun- dreds more a day. $100 million dollars plus is spent each year on law .enforce- ment, court costs, medical services including the coron- er’s services and insurance _ costs because of the drunk- en driver. $78 dollars out of every insurance premium in British Columbia is spent cleaning up after the drunk driver. But the most impor- tant reason that we as a society have to ‘get the drunk driver off our roads is the precious life that is being taken away from all of us. 75 percent of the victims of the drunken driver in- volved in an alcohol related automobile crashe are guilty of only one thing: they are guilty, of being in the wrong placé at the wrong time. M.A.D.D., Mothers A- gainst Drunk Drivers, is tying to do something about this tragic situation. M.A.D.D. was very success- ful in pushing for the blood test becoming law in B.C. The blood test is done in a hospital by a doctor like any other blood test is done. But the hospital staff deal- ing with the drunk ° driver check for the blood-alcohol level in a person’s system. It used to be a fact of life that if people were involved in an alcohol related crash they might. just say they were injured, so they could get february 1, 1984, away without taking the- breathalyzer test. In B.C. if you are injured in a traffic accident, you have to have medical treatment as soon as possible. The law de- mands this. The problem with the law is someone involved in a alcohol related crash can fake an injury and by doing so avoid breathalyzer. test because the breathalyzer test has to be administered within two hours after being stopped by the police, or the results are not admissible in a court of law. As of October 1, 1983 the residents of B.C. have the blood test to protect them against the drunken driver, along with the breathalyzer test. M.A.D.D. is. mostly a support group for victims. They are not a vigilante group. Victims in these cases include the fam- ily, friends and the casual- ties themselves, either hurt or killed in alcohol related crashes. M.A.D.D. speaks for the victims that ‘are killed in alcohol related crashes because they cannot speak for themselves. The reason | am so involved in M.A.D.D. and speaking a- gainst the drunk driver is. because my 27 year old wife was killed July 2, 1983, on the Patullo Bridge. be- cause of a 32 year old suspected drunk driver. He was a repeat offender and he was also injured with a broken leg in the same crash. i He had been drinking in a New Westminster hotel’s lounge just prior to my wife’s death. The person responsible for my _ wife’s death was taken to the Royal Columbian Hospital for medical treatment, while my the- wife’s body was taken down to the morgue in the base- ae ment of the same hospital. The doctor that treated the @ suspected drunken driver refused to administer: the blood test that the Surrey R.C.M.P. asked for because the blood test didn’t come into law until October, 1983, and the crash took place & Drunk driving crime July 2, 1983. My wife never | on : had the chance to refuse a blood test when the doctor in the Royal Columbian Hos- pital did the autopsy on her body because she was slaughtered two days be- fore. If a drunken person walks onto a busy street or highway with a gun and uses it-or a drunken driver operates a motor vehicle on a road or highway, there is no difference what so ever. The results are obviously the same: death. | personally have heard ‘dozens of horror stories a- bout the alcohol crash re- lated deaths of children, teenagers and adults. They are all sickening. Nine times out of ten the drunk driver (always) walks or drives away from the scene of the alcohol related crash while innocent victims lie dying or dead on the roadway or trapped inside vehicles bad- ly injured, dying or dead. The majority of the per- ‘sons who join M.A.D.D. are victims themselves. The members of M.A.D.D. help each other cope ‘with the senseless loss of a family member or a friend. They also help in dealing with various government agen- cies, for instance the police department involved in the victim’s case, the coroner’s ‘office, the prosecutors of- fice, Department of Motor Vehicles or any of the many government agencies - that may be involved in any one particular case. Also M.A.D.D. offers advice to victims of the drunk driver on how to deal with repor- ters and staff from the _ newspapers, radio and tele- vision. It is awfully hard for someone to understand the frustrations, anger and emo- tional trauma that the victim goes through unless they themselves happen to be a victim. That is not to say you have to be a victim to join M.A.D.D: - you only need to be a _ concerned citizen. | believe the courts.are far too lenient on the drunken drivers. If our judges were as lenient with a person that went out and killed some- body with a gun, knife or another deadly weapon two drunken ‘ drivers on our roads who are repeat offen- ders do, our judges would be lyched on the spot. Tak- ing somebody’s life should be treated as the mansla- ughter it is, no matter how unintentionally it is done. The person involved is in the same position: DEAD. _ .People (including myself) usually don’t open their eyes to the problem of the drunk driver until someone close to them is either hurt or, worse yet, killed by a drunken driver. It’s not just adults who are injured or killed by the drunk driver. | was told about one child who was’ playing in ~ her fenced front yard. A woman “who was drunk, and a re- peat offender, lost control of her car and drove through the fence that the mother of the little two and a half year old bably girl thought would protect her daughter from harm. It didn’t. The drunk- en driver drove right thro- ugh the fence and over the baby girl, killing her instant- ly. Another case that | know of involved a fifteen year old girl named Michele Quesnel of Richmond and her teen- aged friend Sanya Cote. They were hit while walking across a’street in Richmond by a drunk diver, who was doing between 60 and 65 miles and hour in a 30 mile an hour zone. According to witnesses he didn’t use his brakes for 213 feet after he had hit the two girls, carry- ing Michele Quesnel on the car’s hood for the full 213 feet (over the length of four football fields). The car threw the two teenagers 51 feet farther after the drunk driver applied his brakes. -page7 ee ee * GEE Michele Quesnel was killed instantly while Sanya Cote had various serious injuries and survived. Sanya Cote will suffer the rest of her life, while the Quesnel fami- ly will suffer with the loss of their youngest daughter and sister all of their lives. The drunk driver gets to go on with his life almost unaffec- ted. There is too much plea bargaining going on in our court systems. Drunk driv- ‘ers who kill. or injure are getting off with a couple of points against-their licences or a very small fine (like $10), when in fact they should be spending time in *jail or a lot stiffer fines. British Columbia has the toughest laws in North America dealing with drink- ing and driving, but there is no use having such tough laws if they are not being enforced. Some of the politi- cians in B.C. say that the . blood test law will plug up the court systems in our province. They also say that to enforce the law will be too costly financially. 1 would like to know how much a human life is-worth to these politicians? | personally be- lieve that if only one life is saved because of the blood test, all the expense of enforcing the law is worth every penny and more. Life is very precious and should always be considered price- less. Drinking and driving never mix, and_ they) shouldn’t be mixed. Please don’t drink and drive, | don’t want to bury another member of my family or a - friend because of you! Written in tribute to the memory of all victims of Drunk Drivers.