Petition seeks to intensify Ontario’s driving laws

Back in May, Burlington resident Karen Cumming was driving home from Port Dover when she had a near-death experience: a car hurtling toward her, head-on, as it passed slow-moving traffic in its own lane. She had seconds to react, and managed to swerve out of harm’s way.

The incident galvanized her to make a difference in the way people behave on the road and the complacency that allows acts of aggressive driving to continue. She went to the OPP. She wrote an op-ed piece in the Spectator about her own experience and a second one about aggressive driving after reading about stunt drivers on the Burlington Skyway and Highway 403 near Copetown. Next, she turned to Burlington MPP Eleanor McMahon’s office.

“I wanted to know, what can an average citizen do?” said Cumming. She was advised to launch a petition to present at Queen’s Park — a document that dovetails with McMahon’s own efforts to add teeth to Highway Traffic Act penalties for careless driving.

And while her own near-miss took place on Highway 6 South, Cumming is well aware of the frequency of aggressive and careless driving incidents on Highway 6 North through Flamborough.

She took her petition, which must comprise original signatures to be presented in the Ontario Legislature, door to door in Freelton this summer. And at the door, residents were telling her about hearing the sounds of fatal accidents from their homes, and about family members who have been involved in accidents on Highway 6. “It was almost like this is normal for people to be telling these horrifying stories about things that have happened to their loved ones,” she said.

Cumming’s petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario asks for three things: “concrete and immediate action” to address lack of surveillance on Highway 6, either with police presence, drone or other means; an intensive public education campaign on the penalties for careless driving; and full support for McMahon’s Bill 213.

The MPP noted her private member’s bill, tabled June 9 when the Legislature adjourned for the summer break, aims to give teeth to penalties outlined in the Highway Traffic Act.

If passed, the bill would: increase the minimum fine range from $400 to $2,000, increase the maximum fine range from $2,000 to $50,000, increase the prison term from not more than six months to not more than two years, increase the period of licence suspension to five years from its current two years and add the order of road or driver safety training to the penalty. The bill also asks for an extension of the time police have to investigate careless incidents, from the current six month limit to two years.