It’s the time of year again when the slippery roads are filled with people driving dangerously, whether through their own actions or through careless inaction.
After a slew of cold-weather-related collisions over the past couple weeks, which follows the annual trend of folks failing to take the necessary precautions to be safe on the roads, we can’t help but wonder why people aren’t getting the message.
Every year once the snow falls you can head out on Highway 44 and it’s all but guaranteed that despite slowing down and driving to the conditions, there will be drivers who want to get where they’re going faster. Passing at 120 or 130 km/h is not at all safe, but it’s not at all unheard of.
Fortunately, we know of no fatalities on area roads so far this year. But that’s undoubtedly more a matter of luck than a matter of drivers taking responsibility for their lives, the lives of their passengers and the lives of everyone else on the roads.
This past weekend’s checkstop blitz, which saw local RCMP stop about 375 vehicles, is a good start. The fact that no impaired driving charges were laid is a very good sign.
Sadly, however, week in and week out in the local courthouse we see impaired driving charges, dangerous driving charges, careless driving charges and other clear signs that many people just aren’t taking safety seriously.
Part of the problem is that the current penalties that exist for these infractions are lackluster. They obviously don’t provide the necessary disincentive to keep our roadways safe, or else we wouldn’t keep seeing the same charges crop up.
Someone who passes at 130 km/h on an icy highway should be subject to more than a simply paying a small fine and getting a few demerits. People get away with repeatedly endangering others on the road because the fines simple aren’t working.
We’re no experts on this, and we’re not in a position to be able to suggest how exactly to strengthen the system to make the penalties more severe, and therefore more of a disincentive.
But week in and week out, we see very clearly that there is need for this kind of revision of the laws governing drivers.
