MPPs hold the key to safety

Careless driving on Highway 6 has to stop

We seem to have become so desensitized to these incidents of careless driving.

It’s been awhile since we’ve talked. About a year and a half ago, I wrote about a neardeath experience I had on Highway 6 near Port Dover. Maybe you can relate. I was nearly hit head-on by a speed demon who was trying to pass one car too many and couldn’t get back into his or her lane quickly enough. It took me about three seconds to figure it out, swerve to the side of the highway and avoid being road kill.

At the time, I couldn’t believe that this kind of behaviour was a regular thing. That’s what the guys at the local Tim Hortons told me when I stopped for a cup of tea on my way home to steady my nerves. “It happens all the time,” they shrugged. “Seriously?” I asked in disbelief. They ordered their double doubles and chocolate doughnuts and nodded.

A few days later, I went looking for advice at the local OPP detachment in Burlington. “What can we do?” I asked one of the officers on duty. “Start a petition,” she said, “and take it to Queen’s Park.” And so, we did.

Thanks to a small army of volunteers, we collected 557 signatures in the summer of last year; 557 people who raised their voices and signed their names. Many of them had lost loved ones to what they call “that killer highway.”

Seeing those names on paper felt good. And knowing that our petition was in support of a private member’s bill put forward by Burlington MPP Eleanor McMahon felt even better. McMahon’s husband, a police officer and avid cyclist, had been killed years earlier by a man driving with a suspended licence. McMahon has been crusading for safer roads ever since, and was now hoping that her Bill 213 would become law. It might have — if she hadn’t been named a cabinet minister in June of last year. It turns out a cabinet minister cannot champion a private member’s bill. Sadly, the proposed legislation died on the order paper. But in politics as in life, hope springs eternal. Last week, Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca introduced legislation that increases the maximum fine for careless driving to $50,000, increases the maximum licence suspension to five years, and introduces the possibility of jail time for careless driving, to a maximum of two years. As an added bonus, there are also stiffer penalties for distracted driving. It’s everything Eleanor McMahon was asking for.

The best case scenario? This proposed legislation will be passed in short order, and the highways in this province will gradually become safer places to be. Do we need added enforcement?

Hard to believe, but in the space of just a few days last week, there were four reported accidents on different stretches of Highway 6; two of them fatal. The very day the proposed legislation was announced, a 19-yearold man was killed in a single vehicle rollover near Caledonia. Police say speed was a factor. The night before, a two-vehicle collision on Highway 6 near Guelph closed a stretch of the road for several hours. Luckily, the injuries there were minor. Fast forward to Friday, when a London man was killed in a collision with a dump truck on Highway 6 near Mount Forest. And that same afternoon in Flamborough, a Hamilton police officer was struck at the side of Highway 6 near Concession Road 8 West by a speeding SUV he was attempting to pull over. The officer was thrown into the hood of the vehicle and then slammed into the ditch. To the relief of everyone, his injuries were not serious.

It’s stunning: Four incidents in the space of four days. And what’s even more stunning is the fact that we seem to have become so desensitized to these incidents of careless driving that most of us don’t even take the time to bring them up in conversation at the breakfast table anymore. It’s just like the guys at Tim Hortons told me a year and a half ago. “It happens all the time.”

So here’s the bottom line: It’s up to our MPPs to turn this proposed legislation into law. The people have spoken, Queen’s Park. Please make it so.