Today's newstory about MADD speaks volumes of community attitudes to drinking and driving.
When I started to practice law a drinking and driving offences was seen, candidly, as a rather significant traffic ticket. Impaired driving, absent injury or death, was treated lighted.
Today the situation is quite different -- impaired driving is seen as a significant crime. And it has become less common.
But MADD doesn't want to take comfort out of (partial) victory:
The StatsCan figures, which were gathered at MADD's request, show that there were 117,514 people charged in 1986 for operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level of 0.08, compared to 57, 147 in 2006.
Anti-drunk driving advocates say that police are discouraged by the piles of paperwork involved and the legal challenges in convicting an impaired driver and therefore, are laying less charges.
Margaret Miller the national president of MADD Canada told CTV Newsnet Friday that she didn't think the figures actually represented a significant drop in drinking and driving.
"I am not putting too much stock in the Statistics Canada figures simply because they aren't taking into account the impaired people being charged at the .05 to the .07 level," she said, noting that those levels are taken care of at the provincial level.
There is no offence, in criminal law, of driving at the 0.05 to 0.07 level. It's not a crime -- and the refusal to accept Good News because it does not deal with matters unrealted to the News is merely an example of an organization that does not know when to quit.
That said, there is more work to be done on Impaired Driving -- but let's accept success when it comes!
2 comments:
That said, there is more work to be done on Impaired Driving -- but let's accept success when it comes!
Well said.
I don't understand these people who cannot face reality and continue to improve.
It reminds me of Harper who is telling that we should trust our feelings when it comes to crime instead of facts.
One gets the feeling that they are trying to push an agenda and ideology instead of doing good.
They ask that we dismiss figures to suit their beliefs.
I'm no fan of MADD and Miller - she's too much of a shrieking harpy. Any charitable organization that refuses to have an external audit is scum to me. From all that I have read, is that their fundraising practices are dubious at best.
I believe you will see the minimum BAC level will be lowered to .05 across the provinces. and the sentencing provisions tightened over the next few years. Ignition Interlock devices are also reducing the number of drinking and driving offences, as I am sure in the past a large number of those charged were repeat offenders.
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