These days, driving while under the influence of alcohol has become a deadly crime. The deaths would be preventable if we had more stringent laws against this issue. One person every 51 minutes dies as a result of an impaired driver, and the only people that will say the DUI laws are too strict, or not strict enough the way they are now, are the ones performing drinking and driving.
Here is a question for people: What if your loved one had been killed by a drunk driver who ran a stop sign? Would the laws still be too strict? The sudden death of a loved one shatters families’ lives. Families never return to their normal ways of life, while the offenders, after a few days in prison, reclaim their everyday life as a result of our fragile criminal justice system.
Everyday road users share the road with repeat offenders who are highly resistant to change their behavior despite previous sanctions, treatments, or education. The Ontario impaired driving penalties in the Criminal Code state that for a first offense, driving while impaired with a BAC above .08 is fined $600-$1000. For a second offense, the same conditions apply, but also receive 30 days in jail instead of 14 days. And for a third offense, the same applies but now receive 120 days in jail instead of 90 days. Someone who kills another while driving under the influence is convicted of a more general crime, like involuntary manslaughter, which results in 10 to 16 months.
This being said, let’s say a drunk driver steps into his vehicle and thankfully was caught before an accident accumulated. The individual will pay $1,000. Now say the same person was caught a second time, and the consequence they receive is 30 days in jail. Then that same person again was caught a third time and received 120 days in jail.
Now there is a possibility that though the person was not caught the first time, they had not seen the red light and ran over and killed a pedestrian. That impaired driver may have not learned their lesson the first time because the laws are not serious enough, and the second time, they could end another human’s life. Even your end your life. The laws are too lenient.
The Ontario Highway Traffic Act has created consequences and punishments that are in addition to the Criminal Code fines spoken above. These include license suspensions between one year for the first offense to a lifetime for a third offense. These drivers must also complete a remedial measures assessment and education or treatment program for approximately 10 months. As well, they must install an ignition interlock device on their vehicles for between 1 year for a first offense to life for a third offense.
The ignition interlock device is a leased breath alcohol monitoring machine wired into your vehicle’s ignition. For a first offense of driving with a BAC above .08 without injury to an individual, you should serve a two-year license suspension and a $5,000 fine. For a second offense, under the same conditions, you should serve a five-year license suspension and one year in jail. If you cause the death of another individual, you should serve five to ten years in prison.
47% of people killed in drunk driving accidents are innocent victims, according to the provincial police reports. This statistic was proven to be true over the past 15 years and was published in November of 2017. Statistics prove that 987 people have died due to DUIs since 2003 on OPP-patrolled roads and, out of that 987, thirty-seven of them died in the year 2017. Police also reported around 72,000 impaired driving incidents occur every year in Canada.
It’s not hard to overlook a law and foresee it as too strict or not strict enough. For example, many people think that marijuana laws are irrelevant or that accidental manslaughter law is too strict. But when you have over 50% of innocent people’s lives ending because a person who thinks to themselves they’re okay to drive because they’re just buzzed or haven’t had too much to drink, that is where the line must start to be drawn. The line between facts and opinions.
Needless to say, someone receiving one year in prison for coincidentally killing someone while under the influence of alcohol is unsound. Everyone is aware of the law that you cannot drink and drive. If one person chooses to get behind the wheel and ends up killing someone as a result of their inability to function in a motorized vehicle, the penalty should be more severe than just one year.
This poem was written by an unknown source and has several interpretations towards people who drink and drive that result in someone else paying the price they did not deserve. It goes as follows:
I went to a party and remembered what you said,
You told me not to drink, mom,
So I had a sprite instead.
I felt proud of myself,
The way you said I would,
That I didn’t drink and drive,
Though some friends said I should.
I made a healthy choice,
And your advice to me was right.
The party finally ended,
And the kids drove out of sight.
I got into the car,
Sure to get home in one piece,
I never knew what was coming, mom,
Something I expected least.
Now I’m lying on the pavement,
And I hear the policeman say,
The kid that caused this wreck was drunk, mom,
His voice seems far away.
My blood is all around me,
As I try hard not to cry.
I can hear the paramedic say,
This girl is going to die.
I’m sure the guy had no idea,
While he was flying high.
Because he chose to drink and drive,
Now I would have to die.
So why do people do it, mom,
Knowing that it ruins lives?
And now the pain is cutting me,
Like a hundred stabbing knives.
Tell sister not to be afraid,
Tell daddy to be brave,
And when I go to heaven,
Put ‘Daddy’s Girl’ on my grave.
Someone should have taught him,
That it’s wrong to drink and drive.
Maybe if his parents had,
I would still be alive.
My breath is getting shorter, mom.
I’m getting really scared.
These are my final moments,
And I’m so unprepared.
I wish that you could hold me, mom,
As I lie here and die.
I wish that I could say ‘I Love you, Mom!’
So I love you and goodbye.
This poem is an exact representation of what provincial police officers are talking about when they say innocent lives are taken away in drinking and driving collisions. It is not always the fool who chooses to drink and drive who serves the deathly consequence. It is clouded over that these impaired drivers get to live and walk away from a scene of an accident, barely punished for the lifelong harm they cause.
Here is another example, a story of a gut-wrenching man who did not pay his price, and four others had to. Jennifer Neville-Lake, a woman out of Newmarket, Ontario, lost her three children and father in 2016 to a head-on collision caused by a drunk driver. She told the gentleman responsible for the impaired driving, Marco Muzzo, “From the witness stand, as she cried ‘I don’t have anyone left to call me mom. You killed all my babies. I miss my kids, I miss my dad, and I want my old life back.'”
Several individuals in the courtroom that day, including police officers, wiped their eyes as Jennifer recalled learning the devastating news and rushing to the hospital just in time to see two of her children taken off life support. Jennifer’s home, once echoed with laughter, has been left frighteningly quiet. She looked Muzzo in the eyes to say, “The roaring silence that has been left behind as a result of your actions is so deafening.”
Her husband, Edward Neville-Lake, said in a statement that he has suffered from suicidal thoughts and intense anxiety since the crash, and the loss had affected their marriage. The offender, Marco Muzzo, had initially faced a dozen counts of impaired driving and six other charges of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. Yet, he still had his license and his ability to drive after all of these counts.
The courtroom was informed that he was so drunk at the time of the September 27, 2016, crash that he urinated on himself and needed help standing. The consequences most definitely are not harsh enough if this man was able to operate impaired driving before the deadly crash. A change must be made!
There are millions of impeccable cases just like Jennifer’s that prove that this should no longer be a debate but a change. Not many people take the time to think about the severity of driving under the influence of alcohol, and they do not realize that it kills hundreds of people. The punishment needs to change.
For the first offense of driving with a BAC above .08% without injury to an individual, you should serve a two-year license suspension and a $5,000 fine. For a second offense, the conditions are the same, but you should serve a five-year license suspension and a $5,000 fine, and a third offense also has the same conditions, but you should serve a twenty-five-year license suspension and one year in jail.
On the other side of that, if you cause the death of an individual while impaired, you should serve a minimum of five to ten years in prison. The laws do not punish to the extent they should. People get caught, get released, and repeat. It’s proven to have happened just like in Jennifer’s case, and there are many others. If the laws were stricter, her three babies would still be with her.
I guarantee mothers and fathers today would gladly pay the punishment fee of $1,000 or sit in jail for 30 days to be able to see their child just one more time. But they can’t! Yet the impaired driver can, so how does this seem fair? Drinking under the influence of alcohol is not only your own stupid mistake. It is another person’s loss. Think twice before you get into the vehicle with an impaired driver or you step into a vehicle after a night out with the boys. It might just save your life.
