Should Alberta doctors be required to report unfit drivers?
That is one of the questions Judge Karl Wilberg posed during his fatal death inquiry of an 11-year-old girl in St. Paul four years ago who died from her injuries after she was struck by a mini-van after it crashed into her school. The crash also seriously injured two other children, one that passed away due to her injuries in September 2016.
His conclusion, and we here at the Barrhead Leader agree, is that physicians should be required to report medically unfit drivers and that they should be required to do so by law.
He noted if a physician had done so in the St. Paul case the accident most likely would have been avoided.
It was determined that Richard Benson, suffered a seizure while driving which, as a result, caused him to lose control of the vehicle. Before the vehicle smashed into the school and the lower level classroom where the children were, it had crossed five streets of traffic travelling at about 80 km/h and plowed through a fence surrounding the schoolyard.
During the subsequent investigation, it was found that Benson had been suffering from seizures for a decade and that he rarely took his prescribed medication, while continuing to drive with a valid drivers licence which he obtained through concealing his health condition when filling out his driver’s licence and vehicle insurance documents.
Wilberg noted that he had multiple interactions with doctors where his medical condition was made known, but no one reported him.
Currently Alberta’s Transportation Act does not require physicians to report drivers they feel are medically unfit to drive. The majority of provinces have such requirements. Alberta, Nova Scotia and Quebec are the only ones that don’t require that don’t have such legislation.
Busby resident Susan Littlechilds, who suffers from Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease, found that out first hand when she renewed her driver’s licence. After a Rick Hansen Foundation presentation at Dunstable School, Littlechilds told us that although, for safety of everyone, she no longer drives she was shocked that she was allowed to renew her licence, despite that fact that many people in the medical community know about her condition.
Littlechilds said she is concerned, that less scrupulous people will use the fact the medical community, like Benson, will conceal their medical history in an effort to keep driving. It is a concern we share.
Being able to drive is not only something that helps us maintain our independence, but is almost part of who we are as people.
Getting your drivers licence is seen as a right of passage. As a result, it is a difficult thing to give up when they know they should. That is why, for everyone’s safety, we need to actively lobby our elected officials to mandate physicians, through legislation, to report unfit drivers to the proper authorities.
