All too often do we see news reports about innocent people losing their lives to reckless driving. The worst part is that the ones who are drunk and driving are the ones who survive the crash. Although this teaches them a good lesson, the price is too high for a lesson founded on common sense.
Obviously, drinking and driving should be dealt with firmly and having harsh legislations would improve road safety by making people think twice before turning on their ignition under the influence. It has been known for some time that being drunk and driving is a large contributor to fatal accidents on the road.
Ontario looks to enforce drinking and driving even more by passing a new law that suspends a driver’s license with a blood alcohol concentration between 0.05 and 0.08. Previously, a driver with a G license can still drive legally with a blood alcohol level of lower than 0.05, and if caught with blood alcohol concentration between 0.05 and 0.08, a twelve-hour license suspension was issued. The new law suspends the driver’s license for three days on the first offense, seven days with an alcohol education program on the second offense, and suspension of thirty days with a remedial alcohol treatment program and an ignition interlock system on the third offense.
I think this is a very good legislation to pass. It will get people thinking twice before they go out drinking with friends, and look to arrange carpools and a designated driver beforehand. We all know how many fatal accidents drinking and driving has caused, and how many innocent lives have been taken.
Additionally, young drivers under the age of twenty-one are subject to a zero tolerance policy. This means that young drivers cannot have any alcohol in their system when driving. As well as new driver’s in their first year are also subject to the zero tolerance rule.
I am happy to see that the Ontario government is firming up their legislation surrounding drunk driving. The government should have been giving out these traffic ticket a long time ago. There must be a firm deterrence of this kind of behavior in order to ensure road safety.
