Woman, 26, gets 3-year term for fatal crash in Île-Bizard
Judge decries ‘scourge’ of drunk driving, says victim was an ‘anchor’ for his family
Driving while impaired is like pointing a loaded gun at someone, a Quebec Court judge said Wednesday before handing a three-year jail term to a 26-yearold woman who struck and killed a father of two in Île-Bizard last year. “Such conduct is a scourge and reminds one more or less of Russian roulette,” Judge Karine Giguère said as she sentenced Marie-Michele Benjamin to prison and ordered that the Île-Perrot resident not be allowed to drive for six years. “Despite all the ad campaigns, the legislative changes and tougher sentences, impaired driving is still trivialized in 2018. Every day individuals take the wheel, knowing that their capacity to drive is affected by alcohol, drugs or medication,” the judge said. “They take to the road while saying they don’t have far to go, that there is little chance they will be caught. At worst, they think, they will have to pay a fine, that it isn’t such a big crime after all.” Benjamin was twice over the legal blood-alcohol limit when she got behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Aveo with a friend at 6:10 a.m. on March 12, 2017. She was heading south on Jacques-Bizard Blvd. in the reversible centre lane and crashed head-on into a car driven by Robert Albert, 60, who was heading to Île-Bizard to eat breakfast at a restaurant. In June, Benjamin pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing death. According to a joint statement of facts read into the court record, her car suddenly switched to the lane reserved for motorists heading north toward Île-Bizard and crashed into the Pontiac driven by Albert. The victim was taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead. It was later determined Benjamin was travelling 107 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. Seconds before the crash, a witness saw the Chevrolet in the wrong lane and running a red light as it sped toward the bridge. “Mr. Albert was 60 years old. He was described as generous, always present, the archetype of a good Marie-Michele Benjamin guy,” Giguère said. One of Albert’s two adult daughters could be heard crying as the judge delivered the decision. “He was an anchor for his two daughters. They miss him dearly and daily.” A pre-sentencing report assessed Benjamin’s risk of reoffending as weak. Following the accident, she distanced herself from the people she had been partying with, and finished a university degree in industrial relations despite having suffered serious injuries in the crash she caused. She was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash and spent a month in the hospital. In the courtroom, a woman who appeared to be Benjamin’s mother sobbed as the young woman was taken into custody in handcuffs.
Such conduct is a scourge and reminds one more or less of Russian roulette.